Book excerpt: A well-sequenced and calibrated process of financial sector reforms introduced in the early 1990s has resulted in a competitive and resilient banking sector. The` total business` (deposits plus credit) of the Indian banking industry has gone up by more than seven times. Fifteen years of financial sector reforms have strengthened the bank`s balance sheet considerably. The `gross non-performing loans (GNPL) percentage` for banks in India have declined sharply from 15.7 per cent in 1996-97 to 2.7 per cent in 2006-07. The average` capital adequacy ratio` of the scheduled commercial banks stood at the healthy level of 12.3 per cent in 2006-07 (as against the regulatory minimum of9.0 per cent) despite a sharp upturn in the credit growth cycle during the last three years. IT has almost completely changed the look and feel of banking. A significant development in this regard is the adoption of Core Banking Solutions (CBS) by banks. The core activities, presently being outsourced by Indian Banks include hardware and software maintenance, hosting, management of data center operations, application support, disaster recovery facilities, management and monitoring, maintenance and management of ATM`s. Some of its emerging opportunities exist in areas of e-banking initiatives, e-commerce outsourcing, complete outsourcing of the IT function and outsourcing the entire ATM set-up and operation to a third party. Sin1ilarly, there is need to develop some visions for bank mergers and acquisition. At present, in India, most of the mergers in banking are based on expediency and to save some banks. In the emerging market scenario for survival and growth, it is critical for a bank to align its vision, mission, goals and for more and more interaction with customers to build customer relationship banking. The book will meet the growing interest of students, researchers, scholars, policy makers and general readers.