Bangalore, March 16. COGNIZANT Technologies has been the biggest recruiter in the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore’s (IIM-B) campus recruitment programme this year, notching up 24 of 180 students.

“They made 30 offers, but were accepted by 24 people and this is the first time that an IT company has made so many offers,” said sources in the institute. This year’s batch was snapped up in record time, according to the institute. In just two days, all the offers were made and accepted.

At the IIMs, ’slot one’ companies (chosen by the students) are given the first two days to conduct their placement process. This year, there were 14 companies that made 100 plus offers on day zero. These include Dresdner KW, Capital One, McKinsey Consultants, AT Kearney and British Petroleum. The ’slot two’ companies were P&G, HLL, ICICI, ABN Amro and Cognizant Technologies.

Officials, however, refused to reveal the average salary, as the details “are yet to be computed.”

Information Technology (IT) holds the key to kick-starting a revolution in banking, said Radha Unni, chief general manager, State Bank of India, here.

She was inaugurating a national conference on `Braving new frontiers in banking,’ organised by the ICFAI Business School, here.

She called for standardisation across banks and appealed to them to take the services to the doorsteps of the customers for financial inclusion.

Anoop Narayanan, security consultant, First Legion Consulting, said human fraud, incompetence and errors made the implementation of new technologies difficult. He also spoke on information leaks and the cultural factors involved.

Punjab National Bank senior manager Guru Murthy spoke on the implementation of core banking solution. He provided an overview of the technologies used in mid-level interactions, in the back offices and in internal monitoring and reports.

K.A. Joseph, managing director, Kerala Venture Capital, summarised the session on IT in banking by providing an overview of mobile Internet banking. He said that IT should equip bankers to convert future threats into opportunities.

A.K. Basu, general manager, State Bank of Travancore, spoke on private banking. He highlighted the various challenges faced in private banking.

Ommen Jacob, regional sales manager, ICICI Bank, said the challenge before private bankers was to provide their customers with the best service in the industry. He spoke about the four R’s of private banking: reach, relationship, research and resource. It was only by investing in them in favour of customer needs could the banks achieve their goals.

A.V. Anil, branch manager, Kotak Mahindra Bank, focussed on the services provided by private banking and also gave a brief picture of the challenges faced such as high client expectations, higher fixed costs and so on. Padma Kumar, former chairman and managing director of Federal Bank, stressed the need for private banking. He said that as the interest rates had reduced, people did not just invest in banks; they had more options.

Private banking should aim at providing products for wealth management to all sections of society for financial inclusion.

Cherian Varghese, former chairman and managing director, Union Bank of India, spoke on retail banking and the various norms issued by RBI regarding it.

V.P. Roshan, branch head, IDBI Bank, gave an overview of how banks operated, the importance of retail banking.

BHUBANESWAR : The city branch of ICFAI Business School claimed that all its students were absorbed by different companies marking 100 per cent placement in 2006-2007 season.

“The average remuneration on a per annum basis is Rs 4.5 lakh while the highest range has touched a mark of Rs 6 lakh per annum,” the school said.

It said some of the major recruiters, who participated in the placement drive, were ICICI Bank, India Bulls, Kotak Securities, HDFC Bank Ltd, Anand Rathi, UTI Securities, Pantaloon Retail India Private Limited and Indus Bank Limited.

The next batch placement season would commence from the month of September and was expected to be completed early 2008.

The class of 2006 in the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, the history of species with 43 students from overseas received 163 offers internships for the summer.

After a release by the Institute, which is strongest in all IIMS in the country. Some companies, the bids are submitted by Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, HSBC, Barclays Capital and Deutsche Bank in different localities throughout the world.

This year, consultants have a return on campus with KPMG, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Price Waterhouse Coopers and Accenture parameters participants during the summer. Techno Almost a first board at the Institut d’outre-mer and six bids stage.

Other participating companies are IBM (18 offers) Icici (16 offers), HLL (10), Aware (nine) and Citibank (six).