Time For Private Capital To Give An Investment Boost: Kotak Bank JMD

Articulating a case for fresh investments to boost the economic growth, Dipak Gupta, Joint Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank, has said that it was the turn of private capital to play a role by shoring up investment and infusing fresh capital.

“While it is heartening to see the government spending in the infrastructure and other areas, the private sector spending has slowed down. It is time this accelerates as we go forward to sustain the momentum,” he said.

Cautious outlook

Sharing his views on macroeconomic issues, he told BusinessLine, “Our outlook is cautious even though there are opportunities to expand business. We need to look out for areas where there will be potential struggle, especially in the NBFC sector and some concerns in the SME sector.”

“Yet we think there are opportunities in the existing areas, such as retail and corporate.

The corporate sector has slowly started moving. The issue of non-performing assets is no longer what it was before. Whatever has happened is part of us. Now it is a matter of accounting and seeking to resolve them,” he explained.

Banking Code

On the Insolvency and Banking Code, the banker said, “It is working well and the process has been useful in resolving cases. In the end, it is resulting in either resolution or liquidation. Otherwise, these issues would have taken a lot of time to settle or may not even see any settlement.”

On the current moves by various political parties on loan waivers, he said this is no big worry from a bank’s perspective but it is a concern because it could impact fiscal prudence.