The 10th triennial national conference of the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) will be held here from March 8 to 10.
Addressing a press conference here, AIBOC general secretary Harvinder Singh has said that nearly 2,500 delegates are expected to attend various programmes. The inaugural session would be held at Nishagandhi Auditorium at 6 pm on Saturday. Speaker G Karthikeyan would inaugurate the conference. CITU leader A K Padmanabhan, Mayor K Chandrika would speak. Harvinder Singh would preside over the meeting.
Harvinder Singh said that despite more than two decades of existence of new generation banks, even today, around 80 per cent of the banking business was done by public sector banks and another five to seven per cent by old private sector banks.
He said the amendment to Banking Regulation Act, policy of granting licences to private sector, including corporate/ industrial houses, and promoting liberal entry to foreign banks were posing a serious threat to shifting the mass-oriented banking to ‘class banking’ practiced before nationalisation.
He said that increase in voting powers to the individuals in public sector banks and private banks poses a threat to old generation private banks in the country.
He also said that the proposed policy to issue banking licences to industrial houses/ corporates would lead to unhealthy competition for capital, resources and talent. Harvinder also said that red carpet welcome proposed to foreign banks and their wholly owned subsidiaries and offer of near national status to them for even taking over small banks was a threat to old generation private banks. Harvinder Singh said that AIBOC members were on an agitation path for a reasonable salary revision.
Now the govt is offering a paltry hike of 10 per cent while the public sector banks were making a net profit of around `50,000 crore (Financial Year 2012-13) after providing `65,000 crore for writing off Non-performing Assets (NPAs) from its gross profit. AIBOC president M Harshavardhan, senior vice-president C Rajkumar, AIBOC president (Kerala) P V Mohanan and state secretary Abraham Shaji John were also present.