Mumbai, August 18, 2010: Dun & Bradstreet (D&B), the world’s leading provider of global business information, knowledge and insight, today announced and presented the ‘Dun & Bradstreet – Polaris Software Banking Awards 2010’ in Mumbai.  The occasion also marked the launch of the fourth edition of D&B India’s study on India’s Top Banks 2010 by Mr M Damodaran, former Chairman, Securities and Exchange Board of India.

Mr Arun Jain, Chairman and CEO, Polaris Software Lab Ltd., Mr Arun Das, Vice President & Business Head (BFSI), Enterprise Services, Bharti Airtel Limited and Mr K.M.Nanaiah, Managing Director, Pitney Bowes India Pvt Ltd. delivered the key note address at the event.

Speaking at the awards, Mr. Kaushal Sampat, President & CEO – India, Dun & Bradstreet said, “The Indian banking industry is entering into an exciting growth phase. Continued efforts towards achieving better asset quality, transparency, capital adequacy, strong corporate governance, coupled with a sagacious regulator have helped the Indian banking system remain largely untouched by the global financial crisis. Through ‘India’s Top Banks 2010’ and the ‘Dun & Bradstreet – Polaris Software Banking Awards 2010’, we have attempted to capture the essence of this important industry.”

“The banks in our study witnessed a slightly subdued but respectable growth in total business in FY 09 while business generation tilted in favour of PSBs. Profitability though was a different story. Private sector banks outperformed their public sector counterparts in the area of profitability. As a part of the publication, Dun & Bradstreet also conducted a separate survey to assess the views of the Indian banking industry on different aspects. With increasing emphasis of the RBI on financial inclusion, most banks surveyed opined that providing “no frills account” and “financial training and advice” are most relevant in this context. While a majority of the banks indicated that “microfinance” is an important way to achieve financial inclusion, “sponsoring a micro finance institution” seemed to be relatively lower on the relevance matrix.” he added.

About the Dun & Bradstreet – Banking Awards 2010

 The ‘Dun & Bradstreet - Polaris Software Banking Awards 2010’ seek to recognize the growth and resilience of the Indian banking industry. The Awards event is closely tied to the publication, India’s Top Banks 2010. Therefore, the base universe of the banks considered are the top 64 scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) as covered in the publication with total income of Rs. 1,000 million and above.

D&B India developed a proprietary quantitative model based on various parameters for identifying the top banks across the spectrum. The model is based on the twin premise of recognizing the size and growth of the banks.  For this purpose, the analyst team identified a number of crucial parameters related to business, profitability, network, priority sector lending, asset quality, global business etc relevant to each award category. The final ranking of the banks was arrived at using a composite score of these weighted parameters. The information has been collated from RBI documents and annual reports of the banks.

 India’s Top Banks 2010

India’s Top Banks 2010 captures the development of banking in the country during FY09 and FY10, and evaluates the scheduled commercial banks (SCBs), consisting of 27 Public Sector Banks (PSBs), 21 Private Sector Banks and 16 Foreign Banks with Total Income of Rs. 1,000 million and above.
Key Highlights  - FY09 and FY10:

• The pace of banks’ total business growth slowed down slightly to around 17-18% in FY10 as compared with around 24 - 25% in FY09. PSBs turned out to be major growth drivers for both years.
• Net Interest Income (NII) witnessed a growth of around 17% in FY10 as compared with around 25% in FY09.
• On the back of stringent cost control measures, profitability witnessed an improvement in both FY09 and further in FY10. Private Sector Banks outperformed PSBs in the area of profitability. With their operating expenses growing at a meager 4.1%, PAT growth for Private Sector Banks was higher at over 20% versus 14.2% growth for PSBs in FY10.
• Cost to income ratio for the top banks stood a tad lower in FY10 than in FY09. Consequently, operating profit margins improved from 9.4% in FY09 to over 10% in FY10.
• The total debt restructuring by the banks in our study witnessed a surge of over 300% in FY09. The increase was seen primarily in the non-CDR category and on the back of support from the RBI.
• Some spillover of NPAs did occur in FY10; however, the same was far lower given the quantum of restructuring exercise.

As part of this study, D&B also conducted a survey to assess the views of the banking industry on various areas of regulations, strategies and future plans. The survey revealed the following –

• An overwhelming majority of the banks surveyed indicated that home loans, vehicle financing, agricultural credit and working capital financing will be their key focus areas.
• Project finance (PF) was seen as the next most focused business area by Indian banking sector with around 85% response rate.
• Approximately 60% of the banks surveyed categorize the credit card business as a high risk venture.
• With increasing emphasis of the RBI on financial inclusion, most banks surveyed have indicated that providing no frills account and financial training and advice as being the most relevant in this context.
• Although 77% of the banks agreed with the idea of the government of issuing new banking licenses, only 56% of the banks were of the opinion that it would help increase the penetration of banking services.
• Most banks seemed to be conducive to the thought about expanding their networks to foreign markets. Within foreign markets, trade finance and loan syndication were the key offerings that they would choose to focus on.

About Dun & Bradstreet (D&B):
Dun & Bradstreet (NYSE:DNB), the world's leading source of global business information, knowledge and insight, has been enabling companies to Decide with Confidence® for over168 years.  D&B's global commercial database contains more than 162 million business records. The database is enhanced by D&B's proprietary DUNSRight® Quality Process, which transforms the enormous amount of data collected daily into decision-ready insight. Through the D&B Worldwide Network -an unrivaled alliance of D&B and leading business information providers around the world customers gain access to the world's largest and highest quality global commercial business information database.

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For more information please contact:
Dun & Bradstreet India:                       
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