Prof. Pradeep Pendse is a man who wears many other hats apart from that of an academician. Quite recently he put on his hat of that of an Environmentalist to address a gathering of who’s who of banking, insurance and finance at ‘BANKTECH’, Banknet’s Seventh International summit. The theme of the conference was ‘Technologies for BFSI in the next decade – Strategies and Management ‘as it focused on emerging technologies which would help the financial institutions achieve their business goals in a dynamic environment and manage convergence efficiently.

Speaking during the session titled ‘Green Banking &Technologies’ Prof  Pendse set the tone of the conference by pointing out the contradictions in the business .He said that while E-Banking seems to have taken a lead over the traditional methods of banking ,yet  65% of the transactions continue to be paper based ,Mobile banking is also on the rise but its adaption is poor, while big banks tave tied up with telecom companies the small banks are kind of left out, while IT drives down the costs , IT in itself is becoming a costly proposition, its environmental  impacts are on rise. Paperless branches, mobile based payment systems, inclusive banking using electronic payments, and value added services to industries including running KPOs and shared services to run applications such as payroll accounting etc would have a huge impact on the clients that they serve.

He therefore advised bankers to consider the option of cloud computing as  it reduces IT operating costs, improves the ability to attract and retain customers, helps to expand market share by creating newer financial products that can be delivered to a cross section of consumers in no time. It helps reduce carbon foot print as it economizes on the usage of energy, needs less hardware as well as software and reduces the use of paper, plastic etc. Green Data Centers, Blade computing, Data Center Virtualization and cloud computing would significantly reduce Carbon footprint of banks. Of the total ICT energy consumed by an organization nearly 25% is spent on servers/datacenter, about 35% on telecom networks and balance 20% on desktop and front end point of sale equipment. While Cloud will help in reducing carbon foot print of the banks, it will still pass on the carbon foot print to the service provider who hosts the cloud.  In the USA except Google and Yahoo, most other large Portals draw power from coal. Google and Yahoo are using Hydro- power and alternative sources such as Wind and solar.  Looking at the fact that each person will carry one or more technology device, the number of technology devices is going to explode and the carbon footprint of these would be enormous – perhaps exceeding that of data centers, cautioned Prof Pendse.

Shifting the focus from virtual  to ground realities Prof Pendse talked about ‘ Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) ‘ where  buildings are designed and built using Eco friendly strategies such as energy savings, water efficiency, CO₂ emissions reduction, improved indoor quality, Optimum utilization of  resources and sensitivity to their impacts. LEED certified building are not only found more energy efficient, but also contribute to  increased  productivity from  better ventilation, temperature and  lighting control, and reduced indoor air pollution, He added.

The other speakers at the session included leaders from the banking industry such as Mr Vere J Carneiro, MD & CEO-Citizen Credit co-op bank, Mr VC Kumanan, Director IT –IDFC Ltd, Mr Rajesh Vaish, IT Facilitator & Advisor – SBI, and Mr Sumeet Dhar, Sr Director-Sales – Nuance India. Prof Pendse’s presentation at the very beginning  set the ball rolling at  the conference that continued to address issues like ‘Managing Risks, Compliances and Security in the emerging environment ’,’Multi channel Strategies & Management-The Road Ahead’ ending with a workshop on, ’Banking Technology Management ‘