PUNE, July 27, 2016
deAsra Foundation had organized a symposium of senior bank officials of cooperative banks to discuss the trends, challenges, and opportunities faced by cooperative banks.
deAsra has come a long way since it’s inception, and has emerged as a strong eco-system for small and aspiring entrepreneurs. With deAsra’s rich resource pool of experienced ex bankers, mentors, and tried tested systems, it has easily become an entrepreneur’s paradise.
This event brought to the fore front the processes followed by deAsra which are aligned with the bank processes and which will simplify the complex funding procedure for bankers. It was discussed at length how deAsra Foundation provides end-to-end support to owners and aspirants of small business. One of the major components of this support is ironing out of funding and loan requirements for the candidates. It helps candidates in preparing proposals for bank loans and supports them on compliance and validation. This process not only helps the candidate get a loan but also helps banks in their assessment procedures by saving the resources and time spent in validating and evaluating proposals. deAsra becomes an interface between the beneficiary and the bank, helping both in meeting their objectives.
The event held at Dewang Mehta Auditorium was attended by 150 bank officials. In the inaugural address, Dr. Anand Deshpande, the founder of deAsra talked about the idea behind conceptualizing deAsra Foundation and it’s mission to create jobs through entrepreneurship. He said , “Today, to start a business, education and skills are not the only factors; business plan, conducive environment, marketing, competition study are equally important along with many other factors. Funding is an important aspect of any business and deAsra and Co-Operative Banks together through direct interaction can understand the pain points from the banker’s angle. Together we can try coming up with solutions and make the process easier for both”.
Pradnya Godbole, CEO, deAsra Foundation, in her presentation, explained the deAsra programme summary and the services that deAsra offers to the budding entrepreneurs and the existing business owners who aspire to grow their business. She further added that deAsra can help the banks by submitting strong and viable proposals validated in advance by deAsra Foundation. This will simplify the bank assessment process and accelerate loan disbursal.
Mr. Abhijeet Kelkar, Manager, Janaseva Bank, shared his experience of working with deAsra, “deAsra Foundation actually shouldered almost half our responsibility. With deAsra’s support, the process of loan sanction and disbursement became a lot easier”
Mr. Vikrant Ponkshe, MD, Cosmos Bank conducted a very powerful and interactive session on the emerging trends in Co-Operative banking space, digitalization being one of them. The session was in a Q & A mode in which he appealed to Co-Operative banks to harness technology, to bring in transparency in operations, to speed up the transactions and to work towards customer delight, and cost reduction. He stressed upon the importance of professionalism, governance, work ethics, and upskilling of bank employees with the current trends; not to forget addressing the challenges within the banks. Moreover, he added the banks should be sensitive to the changed mindset of customers and fulfil the expectations of the customers by integrating bank services with technology. His enthusiastic words enthralled the audience.