THE SUMMIT PREAMBLE

In a tough operating environment for banking and financial service providers with a slowing domestic economy and modest recovery at global and an increased focus on tightening regulatory and governance structures. There have been a number of regulatory initiatives over the past year which seek to enhance the quality of risk-based supervision and better oversight over financial conglomerates.

And with new banking licenses issued by RBI, has only furthered the dire need of improvising the legal & regulatory environment of the sector.

Through a lot of its initiatives and notifications, the apex bank – The RBI has clearly maintained a stance towards repairing and revival based mechanism as far the NPAs are concerned. There are indications that level of stressed assets which includes both NPAs as well as restructured assets are going up. With overlapping regulations and complex issues involved in the process, there is now an urgent need to strengthen due diligence process, follow recommended guidelines by RBI and explore all available options to better risk manage dispersals, early recognition of potential NPA’s and subsequent follow up action.

On the other hand the insurance sector is a governed by a maze of circulars, guidelines, notifications, audit checklists and minimum standards based on archaic legislation of 1938 and rules. The insurance penetration in the country is still very low and most of the people buy insurance for tax savings purposes. With understanding of what the ‘service is’, there continue to be and increasing number of disputes, resulting in litigations across consumer forums, ombudsman and other courts

Changes in regulation and number of agencies involved in regulatory oversight, the necessity to ensure a quick and effective response to identifying potential NPA and action plan for recovery, means – a need to understand and analyse each aspect critically, work with stakeholder, senior management and on organisational level to quickly adapt process and work structure to drive efficiency.

It was against this background that the Lex Witness 3rd Annual Banking and Finance Legal Summit 2016 was organised with more focus on practical knowledge sharing. With a combination of power packed panel discussions focused on topical subject, the summit proved to be a good investment of your time to analyse, interpret and strategize your current and future response to legal, regulatory and compliance challenges.