New CBS bridges CX and Decision Making

K Paul Thomas is expanding ESAF Bank's footprint beyond Kerala and Tamil Nadu into new regions in the North and North East, and diversifying both product offerings and customer segments

Ravi Lalwani: The BFSI sector is rapidly shifting toward more personalized and digital-first financial services. What specific advancements or strategic changes does your organization plan to implement by 2025 to meet evolving market expectations? Are there particular markets where you aim to expand your presence or market share?

K Paul Thomas: We are committed to fully transitioning to digital automation and data analytics by 2025. This journey has already begun, with the ongoing migration to our new core banking system (CBS), Oracle Flexcube, alongside the transformation of key peripheral applications. This shift will significantly enhance customer engagement and enable data-driven decision-making.

From a broader perspective, this transformation will reshape the bank, evolving it into a more agile and futureready entity, accelerating our progress toward our goals.

In addition to targeting unbanked and underbanked customers, we are also focused on attracting new-to-bank and new-to-banking customers, expanding our customer base and strengthening our market presence. Geographically, we plan to further extend our footprint beyond Kerala and Tamil Nadu into new regions in the North and North East. Furthermore, we are actively diversifying both our product offerings and customer segments, ensuring we meet the needs of a broader, more diverse audience and reduces concentration risk.

As you set financial goals for 2025, could you share specific targets, such as revenue growth, customer acquisition metrics, or cost efficiency ratios? How do you plan to leverage key market segments - like real estate, SMEs, or agriculturists to reach these milestones?

We have established clear targets for business growth, customer acquisition, and cost-efficiency ratios. We aim to diversify our loan portfolio by building the secured assets book with an ambitious target to reach a 50% asset mix by 2027.