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Report On
Universal Banking
Parallel Loan
Syndicated Loan
[International Trade and FInance]
Submitted for the partial completion of Bachelor in Management
Studies
Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies
University of Delhi
Table of Contents
Introduction to Universal Banking......................................................1
Universal Banking in India.................................................................3
Products and Services offered by Universal Banks.............................4
Universal banking coupled with SWOT..............................................7
Issues and challenges in Universal Banking.....................................11
Conclusion....................................................................................... 13
Parallel Loan.................................................................................... 14
Need for parallel loan....................................................................14
Benefits......................................................................................... 14
Drawbacks.................................................................................... 15
Syndicated Loan.............................................................................. 16
History.......................................................................................... 19
Types of Syndicated Loan..............................................................21
Credit facilities.............................................................................. 21
debt) and participate directly in the Corporate Governance of firms that rely on the
banks for funding or as insurance underwriters."
In a nutshell, a Universal Banking is a superstore for financial
products, under one roof. Corporates can get loans and avail of other handy
services, while individuals can bank and borrow. It includes not only services
related to savings and loans but also investment. However in practice the term
'Universal Banking' refers to those banks that offer wide range of financial services
beyond the commercial banking functions like Mutual Funds, Merchant Banking,
Factoring, Insurance, Credit Cards, Retail loans, Housing Finance, Auto Loans,
etc.
However, Universal Banking does not mean that every institution conducts
every type of business with every type of customer. In the spectrum of banking,
specialized banking is on the one end and the Universal Banking on the other.
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Opportunities:
1. To increase efficiency and productivity
Liberalization offers opportunities to banks. Now, the focus
will be on profits rather than on the size of balance sheet. Fee
based incomes will be more attractive than mobilizing deposits,
which lead to lower cost funds. To face the increased competition,
banks will need to improve their efficiency and productivity, which
will lead to new products and better services.
2. To get more exposure in the global market
In terms of total asset base and net worth the Indian banks
have a very long road to travel when compared to top 10 banks in
the world. (SBI is the only Indian bank to appear in the top 100
banks list of 'Fortune 500' based on sales, profits, assets and
market value. It also ranks II in the list of Forbes 2000 among all
Indian companies) as the asset base sans capital of most of the
top 10 banks in the world are much more than the asset base and
capital of the entire Indian banking sector. In order to enter at
least the top 100 segment in the world, the Indian banks need to
acquire a lot of mass in their volume of operations.
Pure routine banking operations alone cannot take the Indian
banks into the league of the Top 100 banks in the world. Here is
the real need of universal banking, as the wide range of financial
services in addition to the Commercial banking functions like
Mutual Funds, Merchant banking, Factoring, Insurance, credit
cards, retail, personal loans, etc. will help in enhancing overall
profitability.
3. To eradicate the 'Financial Apartheid'
A recent study on the informal sector conducted by Scientific
Research Association for Economics (SRA), a Chennai based
association, has found out that, 'Though having a large number of
branch network in rural areas and urban areas, the lowest strata of
the society is still out of the purview of banking services. Because
the small businesses in the city, 34% of that goes to money
lenders for funds. Another 6.5% goes to pawn brokers, etc.
The respondents were businesses engaged in activities such
as fruits and vegetables vendors, laundry services, provision
stores, petty shops and tea stalls. 97% of them do not depend the
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banking system for funds. Not because they do not want credit
from banking sources, but because banks do not want to lend
these entrepreneurs. It is a situation of Financial Apartheid in the
informal sector. It means with the help of retail and personal
banking services Universal Banking can reach this stratum easily.
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Conclusion
The banking scenario has changed drastically. The changes
which have taken place in the last ten years are more than the
changes took place in last fifty years because of the
institutionalization, liberalization, globalization and automation in
the banking industry.
Universal banking is the fastest growing sector of the banking
industry with the key success by attending directly the needs of
the end customers is having glorious future in coming years.
Universal banking sector as a whole is facing a lot of
competition ever since financial sector reforms were started in the
country. Walk-in business is a thing of past and banks are now on
their toes to capture business. Banks therefore, are now
competing for increasing their business.
There is a need for constant innovation in universal banking.
This requires product development and differentiation, microplanning, marketing, prudent pricing, customization, technological
upgrade, home/electronic/mobile banking, effective risk
management and asset liability management techniques.
However, the kind of technology used and the efficiency of
operations would provide the much needed competitive edge for
success in universal banking business.
Furthermore, in all these customer interest is of chief
importance.
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Parallel Loan
A parallel loan involves 2 parent companies taking loans from their
respective national financial institutions and then lending the
resulting funds to the other companys subsidiary.
This combines the low domestic borrowing rates with foreign-source
financing of the foreign subsidiary
Benefits
It legally circumvents the tax restrictions on cross border
transactions
Parallel loans allow each multinational to borrow domestically
where it enjoys low borrowing costs
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Drawbacks
Default risk Each loan in this arrangement is a separate
agreement, so if one party defaults it does not release the
other party from its obligations
Balance sheet impact- Parallel loans increase the debt to equity
ratio of a company which can impair the ability of the parent
firm to raise additional debt
Search costs- When parallel loans were first introduced, there
was not an active market for them. The absence of dealers able
to make a market in parallel loans results in high search costs
and slow growth
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Syndicated Loan
A loan offered by a group of lenders (called a syndicate) who
work together to provide funds for a single borrower. The borrower
could be a corporation, a large project, or a sovereignty (such as a
government). The loan may involve fixed amounts, a credit line, or a
combination of the two. Interest rates can be fixed for the term of
the loan or floating based on a benchmark rate such as the London
Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR).
Syndicated credits are a very significant source of international
financing, with signings of international syndicated loan facilities
accounting for no less than a third of all international financing.
A project may require too large a loan for a single lender or
require a special type of investor or lender with expertise in a
particular asset class. For example, a transportation project, such as
a high speed rail, may involve a group of investors and lenders, each
specializing in a portion of the project, such as rail lines, cars,
bridges and tunnels, and signal and control technologies. The whole
group is referred to as a syndicate.
Syndicate members play different roles. Some just lend money.
Others also facilitate the process. It is common to speak of an
arranger, lead bank or lead lender that originates the loan, forms the
syndicate and processes payments. But several syndicate members
may share these tasks. Syndications with two or more arrangers are
not uncommon. In a world where bragging rights are important for
securing future deals, a bank may be called an arranger for nothing
more than contributing a large part of the loan.
The main goal of syndicated lending is to spread the risk of a
borrower default across multiple lenders (such as banks) or
institutional investors like pension funds and hedge funds. Because
syndicated loans tend to be much larger than standard bank loans,
the risk of even one borrower defaulting could cripple a single
lender. Syndicated loans are also used in the leveraged buyout
community to fund large corporate takeovers with primarily debt
funding.
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History
Syndication has been used for decades on an as-needed basis by
banks wanting to spread the risk of large loans. The first phase of
expansion began in the 1970s. Between 1971 and 1982, mediumterm syndicated loans were widely used to channel foreign capital to
the developing countries of Africa, Asia and especially Latin America.
Syndication allowed smaller financial institutions to acquire
emerging market exposure without having to establish a local
presence. Syndicated lending to emerging market borrowers grew
from small amounts in the early 1970s to $46 billion in 1982,
steadily displacing bilateral lending.
The market took off following the first, 1973, oil shock. As the
price of oil skyrocketed, banks recycled deposits from oil exporting
countries as syndicated loans to oil importing countries, especially
less-developed countries in Latin America. The second oil shock, of
1981, and the Fed's experimentations with monetarism, caused
interest rates to shoot up in the early 1980s. Lending came to an
abrupt halt in August 1982, after Mexico suspended interest
payments on its sovereign debt, soon followed by other countries
including Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela and the Philippines. Lending
volumes reached their lowest point at $9 billion in 1985.
In 1987, Citibank wrote down a large proportion of its emerging
market loans and several large US banks followed suit. That move
catalyzed the negotiation of a plan, initiated by US Treasury
Secretary Nicholas Brady, which resulted in creditors exchanging
their emerging market syndicated loans for Brady bonds,
eponymous debt securities whose interest payments and principal
benefited from varying degrees of collateralization on US Treasuries.
While banks became more sophisticated, more data became
available on the performance of loans, contributing to the
development of a secondary market, which gradually attracted nonbank financial firms, such as pension funds and insurance firms.
Eventually, guarantees and risk transfer techniques enabled banks
to buy protection against credit risk while keeping the loans on the
balance sheet. The advent of these new risk management
techniques enabled a wider circle of financial institutions to lend on
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Best efforts deal: Here the arrangers try to recruit enough syndicate
members to achieve a desired loan size. If they fail, however, the
borrower simply receives a smaller loan than it had hoped for.
Credit facilities
Syndicated loans facilities (Credit Facilities) are basically financial
assistance programs that are designed to help financial institutions
and other institutional investors to draw notional amount as per the
requirement.
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