BRICS-promoted bank to start operations by April, says Kamath

The New Development Bank (NDB), promoted by BRICS nations, is expected to begin operations by April next year, its first President KV Kamath said on Thursday.Kamath will be taking over the mantle of the multilateral development institution next month in Shanghai, where it is headquartered.“I hope to work with BRICS and other member-countries of the NDB over the next few months so as to build project pipelines by April 2016. I am engaged with the government to ensure that there are some Indian projects in the infra space that can be taken up,” he said.

Kamath was speaking at a meeting of CII’s National Council here. The seasoned banker is a past president of the industry body.Explaining the rationale for the name change to NDB (formerly BRICS Bank), he said this was in anticipation of more countries joining the five-member grouping in future.

Besides India, other BRICS members are Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa.

“The reason for not including BRICS in the name of the bank was that new partner countries may eventually join the BRICS group of emerging economies.”Stating that the NDB will be different from other multilateral institutions like the World Bank and ADB, Kamath said it will have a different mindset that is required for the developing countries and it will be a lot more flexible in its operations.

“Its policy mindset will be driven by all stakeholders and not just the lenders. An important aspect will be with regard to the speed of lending for projects posed to the institution,” he said.NDB would seek to bring product diversification by introducing new capital market products and will also be open for further equity infusion, said Kamath, a former CEO of ICICI Bank, India’s top private lender.

Stating that currency diversification would be kept in mind while funding, he said there would be no pro-rating for funding and assistance will be provided to founding countries as well as member-countries. Pti