The most important activity of a commercial bank is to mobilize deposits from the public. People who have surplus income and savings find it convenient to deposit the amounts with banks. Depending upon the nature of deposits, funds deposited with bank also earn interest. Thus, deposits with the bank grow along with the interest earned. If the rate of interest is higher, public are motivated to deposit more funds with the bank. There is also safety of funds deposited with the bank. The following types of deposits are usually received by banks: Current Deposit: Also called ‘demand deposit’, current deposit can be withdrawn by the depositor at any time by cheques. Businessmen generally open current accounts with banks. Current accountsContinue reading
Bank Management
Functions of Commercial Banks
The main functions of commercial banks are accepting deposits from the public and advancing them loans. However, besides these functions there are many other functions which these banks perform. Paul Samuelson has defined the functions of the Commercial bank in the following words: “The Primary economic function of a commercial bank is to receive demand deposits and a honor cheques drawn upon them. A second important function is to lend money to local merchants farmers and industrialists.” The major functions performed by the commercial banks are: 1. Accepting Deposits This is one of the primary functions of commercial banks. The commercial banks accept different types of deposits, the deposits may be broadly classified as demand deposits and time deposits.Continue reading
Types of Interest Rate Risk
Due to the very nature of its business, a bank should accept interest rate risk not by chance but by choice and when the bank has to take a risk as a choice, then it should ensure that the risk taken is firstly manageable and secondly it does not get transformed into yet another undesirable risk. As stated earlier, the focal point in managing any risk will be to understand the nature of the risk. This is especially essential for interest rate risk management. Interest rate risk is the gain/loss that arises due to sensitivity of the interest income/interest expenditure or values of assets/liabilities to the interest rate fluctuations. Types of Interest Rate Risks The sensitivity to interest rateContinue reading
Bank Decisions on Investment Borrowings
Assessment of the liquidity gap based on the forecasts is essentially one aspect of the liquidity management. The other major task of liquidity management is to manage this liquidity gap by adjusting the residual surplus/deficit balances. Considering the high costs associated with cash forecasting, it is essential that the benefits drawn by the bank from such forecasting should be substantially large to give some residual gains after meeting the forecasting costs. This objective can, however, be attained only if the bank makes prudent investment/borrowing decisions to manage the surplus/deficit. There are, however, a few factors which must be considered before deciding on the deployment of excess funds/borrowings for meeting the deficit which are given below: Deposit Withdrawals Credit Accommodation ProfitContinue reading
Liquidity Risk Management in Banks
While introducing the concept of Asset-Liability Management (ALM), it has been mentioned that the object of any ALM policy is twofold — ensuring profitability and liquidity. Working towards this end, the bank generally maintains profitability/spreads by borrowing short (lower costs) and lending long (higher yields). Though this process of price matching can be done well within the risk/exposure levels set for rate fluctuations it may, however, place the bank in a potentially illiquid position. Efficient matching of prices to manage the interest rate risk does not suffice to meet the ALM objective. Price matching should be coupled with proper maturity matching. The inter-linkage between the interest rate risk and the liquidity of the firm highlights the need for maturity matching.Continue reading
Foreign Exchange Department of Banks
The Foreign Exchange department, which is also being called as the International Banking Division, is one of the important departments of the banks operating in international market. In India also all scheduled commercial banks, both in the nationalized or non-nationalized sectors, do have Foreign Exchange departments, both at their principal offices as well as offices, in metropolitan centers. This department functions independently under the overall change of some senior executive or a senior officer well-versed in foreign exchange operations as well as in the rules and regulations in force from time to time pertaining to foreign exchange transactions advised by various government agencies. The principal function of a Foreign exchange department is to handle foreign inward remittances as well asContinue reading