NEW DELHI, 1 September 2007 — The two-day conference on “Participatory Banking for All: A Business Proposition”, organized by the Indo Arab Economic Cooperation Forum in collaboration with Institute of Objective Studies (IOS), began at the Parliament Annexe, New Delhi yesterday.
The conference will be focusing on concept, paradigms, issues and challenges facing the industry.
The conference will strive to evolve a consensus on the subject and dwell upon the urgency to have a definite policy framework to enable the industry to grow in India and meet the aspirations of millions of its people.
The conference will be attended by leading economists, bankers, scholars and decision-makers from India and countries across the globe.
Although the emergence of participatory banking in the form of interest free banking and finance has been in existence for more than a quarter of a century, there are serious doubts regarding its need, usefulness, viability, and efficiency, in certain quarters including India.
It is a comparatively young and a growing industry, and continues to evolve and expand both financially and geographically. It has gone from commercial banking to syndicated transactions and equities, and more recently, into debt issuance and structured products. Its sophistication and product offering have developed along with this change.