Financial Performance of Retail Banking in India Literature review

Financial Performance of Retail Banking in India - Literature review Example Amidst all unfavourable global financial climates, India’s Banking Industry, especially the retail banking industry was able to maintain steady growth. â€Å"Retail Banking is a banking service that is geared primarily towards individual consumers. Retail banking is usually made available by commercial banks, as well as smaller community banks. Unlike wholesale banking, retail banking focuses strictly on consumer markets†(Dr. Revathy, 2012, p.132). In fact the pace at which the Indian banking industry has grown in recent times has surprised many economists and neutral observers. The growth in Indian banking industry â€Å"is evident from the higher pace of credit expansion, expanding profitability and productivity similar to banks in developed markets, lower incidence of non- performing assets and focus on financial inclusion†(Dr. Goyal & Joshi, 2012, p.18). It should be noted that majority of the banking institutions including commercial banks and co-operative b anks in India are functioning under the strong control of Reserve Bank of India (RBI). However, a small number of unscheduled cooperative banks are present in India which is functioning almost independently though RBI has some control on such banks. Even strong control of RBI is there, Indian retail banking industry is developing rapidly. ... e sector significantly outperformed their public sector counterparts (28.38 percent v/s 9.85 percent), the interest income for the banks under study increased by 33.85 percent in FY12(Indian banks: Performance benchmarking report, 2012, p.3). Banking interest rate in India is fixed by RBI. RBI increases or decreases Ripo, reverses ripo and CRR. Repo is the short form of repurchase agreement. â€Å"Repo rate or repurchase rate is the rate at which banks borrow money from the central bank (read RBI for India) for short period by selling their securities (financial assets) to the central bank with an agreement to repurchase it at a future date at predetermined price† (Ansul, 2010). It is just like borrowing money from a lender by selling him something. Reverse ripo is the opposite of repo. In the case of reverse ripo, a dealer buys government securities from an investor and then sells them back at a later date for a higher price (Investopedia, 2013). In short, ripo is the rate at which RBI sell its funds to other financial institutions whereas reverse ripo represents the interest at which RBI borrows funds from other banks. Banking interest rates depends on the ripo and reverse ripo rates. In other words, banks will be forced to increase the interest rates or money lending and borrowing when the ripo and reverse ripo rates increases and vice versa. In short, banking interest rates are directly proportional to the ripo and reverse ripo rates. Cash reserve Ratio (CRR)  is the amount of funds that the banks have to keep with the RBI (What is CRR, repo and reverse repo rate?, 2012) RBI cuts Repo Rate from 7.50% to 7.25%;  Reverse Repo Rate, Bank Rate and MSF Rates too adjusted to 6.25%, 8.25% and 8.25% respectively in this month (Goyal, 2013). CRR, Ripo and reverse ripo rates