REINFORCING BRAND COOPERATIVE

Banking Frontiers organized its annual Frontiers in Cooperative Banking Awards and Conference in Lucknow in October where stalwarts from the sector shared insights into progress achieved and gave guidance on the road ahead.

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Edited excerpts from the panel discussions on (i) Governance, (ii) Digital Transformation and (iii) Lending:

Laxmi Dass, President, NAFCUB

If you talk about governance, we do governance in our homes too. And that home does not run if the governance is not good. If the administration of the home is not good, that home faces difficulties. So, in the organizations that we are running - cooperative, credit and thrift societies - there is a lot of importance of governance in that. In the past few days, I had the opportunity to go to such groups where people from the banks and technology were together.

There are only 1500 cooperative banks, but there are thousands of societies that are working on credit and thrift, which are working in very remote areas. The NAFCUB has started with the help of government that all the directors of the co-operative banks should be trained and their main subject is corporate governance. This is the proof that we in the cooperative sector give importance There have been a lot of camps in Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab, there have been 3 or 4 camps in Uttar Pradesh.

The point is that we have the responsibility and the mandate, and how much we follow it. Everyone should follow their responsibilities and work according to their mandate. According to me, there can be no better governance than this. For the people in credit and thrift societies and in the cooperative sector, it is our responsibility to understand that the money that has come to us from people is not our money, it is the people's money.

So the money that the people have kept with faith - that money should be trusted in the right way, and it should be patronized and protected. The depositor's money should remain safe and the depositor should get it back - this I think it is the best governance.