| Dr. P.K. Mishra, Principal secretary to PM addresses NIBM’s 20th Annual Convocation | | | Early Times Report
New Delhi, May 16: Dr. P.K. Mishra, Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, today addressed the 20th Annual Convocation of the National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM) in Pune, Maharashtra. Expressing his delight at joining the ceremony, he warmly congratulated the Batch of 2024-26 and the Gold Medal winners. He emphasized that the graduates are entering the professional world during a pivotal era where banking extends far beyond simple commerce. “Convocation ceremonies are milestones of achievement; but they are also moments of transition,” remarked Dr. Mishra.
Reflecting on NIBM’s five-decade legacy as the apex banking think-tank, Dr. Mishra highlighted the critical importance of institutional excellence. He noted that while traditional banking focused merely on mobilizing savings, the contemporary landscape demands a broader focus on national opportunity. He urged the graduating class to internalize this evolving scope. “In the coming days, you need to see banking and finance in a much broader sense, as an architecture of inclusion, opportunity, trust and national development,” he stated. Discussing traditional economics, Dr. Mishra explained that finance historically operated as a quiet enabler in the background. He pointed out that linkages between the real economy and finance were poorly understood, often leaving the less privileged excluded from formal institutional support. He affirmed that this skewed credit availability adversely affected livelihoods. “Credit is an important element of economic activity, livelihood generation and well-being of citizens,” he affirmed. Touching upon rural credit disparities, Dr. Mishra detailed how early economic theories failed to resolve the predominance of informal moneylenders. He observed that contrasting views, from monopoly theories to competitive market models, could not ensure cheap priority credit for the poor.
“By the 1990s, economists realized neither view fully explained ground realities, such as moneylenders successfully charging exceptionally high rates even when cheaper institutional alternatives existed,” he stated.
Sharing insights from his own 1990s research, Dr. Mishra explained that information asymmetry and enforcement problems historically made formal rural lending costly and heavily reliant on collateral. He noted, however, that technology has fundamentally solved this structural difficulty. “The modern application of technology has drastically reduced these information costs, effectively mitigating historical market asymmetries,” he remarked.
Dr. Mishra asserted that integrating finance with digital identity and mobile connectivity has dismantled long-standing barriers to reach the population at scale. He showcased the JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, and Mobile) and the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) architecture, noting they have transferred over ₹50 lakh crore while saving ₹4 lakh crore in systemic governance. He described these tools as a fundamental bridge to economic identity. “A digital payment system is not merely technology. It is a bridge between informality and formal economic participation, between exclusion and opportunity, between invisibility and economic identity,” he noted. |
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