FIN EXTEMPORE

A Finance knowledge competition was organized by the finance club of the MBA department on 10th June 2022 at CHRIST (Deemed to be University), Pune Lavasa Campus. The Competition was titled FIN EXTEMPORE. The event intended to test students’ finance knowledge, business acumen and certain soft skills clubbed with the ability to coordinate and cooperate with different specialization students. It was expected that the competition would help the students in developing a deep understanding of financial markets and concepts related to the domain. In addition, it sought to develop coordination, cooperation, and leadership skills among the participants.

The event started with a welcome address after which all the participants were grouped into 14 teams. Each team consisted of three members belonging to three different specializations of Marketing, Finance and HR. As the name of the event suggests, the event had the teams competing against one another in an extempore presentation. Each team was assigned a finance-related topic randomly and was given a preparation time of two minutes. The team was then expected to speak for three minutes on the assigned topic before defending the questions raised by other teams. Following are the finance-related topics that were assigned to the participants:

• Levered vs non-Levered firm in times of global crises
• Life Insurance is a misused and misunderstood product in India
• Mutual Funds are underrated in India as an Investment Tool
• Financial Literacy has a major role to play in the Gender Gap in stock Market Investment in India
• Dividend Should always be distributed as it is the right of the shareholders
• Debt in Capital Structure is necessary
• CSR activities are detrimental to the profit-making ability of a firm
• Only people from Finance backgrounds deserve to be CEOs
• Sound Financial Knowledge is extremely required for Stock Market Investing
• AI and Analytics will replace the role of middle-level finance managers
• Foreign events such as the Russia-Ukraine war are actually detrimental to Indian Stocks' performance
• Stock Markets is the best option to invest
• Traditional Banking Structure is doomed because of rising FinTech platforms
• Wealth Maximization vs Profit Maximization
• Is using Credit Card worth it

The activity started with the presentation of group number 01. The topic assigned to them was “Dividends should always be distributed as it is the right of the shareholders”. They presented detailed information about their topic and backed their arguments with suitable examples and data. The next group was Group number-07.

Their topic was “Debt in capital structure is necessary”. This group gave a comparison of companies with and without debt in their capital structure. They also shed light on the significance of financial leverage in enhancing the earnings per share of shareholders. Next came Group-12, their topic was “Stock markets are the best option to invest”. They emphasized the role of the security market in boosting the Indian economy. Group Number-03 came with the comparative analysis on the topic “Wealth Maximization vs Profit Maximization”. This group gave a very thoughtful presentation as they stressed the financial management’s core objective of maximizing the wealth of the shareholder over and above the profit. Next was Group no.1 and they gave a presentation on the topic titled “Life insurance is a misused and misunderstood product in India”. The said team shared the insight about Insurance penetration in India and the reason for the misuse of Life Insurance being used as tax saving instrument rather than a risk coverage contract.

The event was overall a very good learning experience for not only finance but also for the students of other specializations. It helped the students in both developing clarities on various issues related to the finance domain and to hone their presentation skills so that the ideas/concepts can be delivered in an effective manner.