Banks Profit From Digital Connect

Technology is a top priority for Indian banks as they look to improve services and expand in a competitive market.

- RUKMINI RAO

NATURAL LANGUAGE processing (NLP), Gen AI, core tech…that such seemingly arcane concepts are now commonly discussed in bank boardrooms and strategy meetings shows the distance Indian banking has travelled over past few years. The triggers: Changing customer needs, competition from tech-savvy fintechs and cost pressures. While Indian banks started using computers in the 90s, over past five-six years, they have been riding the next wave of digitisation to improve efficiency, customer experience and risk management. Internet banking, mobile apps, robotic process automation and machine learning (ML) have become game changers. Leading the change are some of India’s oldest lenders.

State Bank of India (SBI), which calls itself the ‘Banker To Every Indian,’ has launched mobile apps for 10 of its sponsored regional rural banks. Its mobile banking app YONO has introduced YONO Business for companies, integrating offerings such as trade finance, forex, cash management, internet banking, API banking, pre-approved business loans, cash management and supply-chain finance. “YONO Business has onboarded 5.24 lakh new-to-digital customers with 66 crore transactions. We opened 2,00,000 current accounts through YONO Business in FY24,” SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara has said in a letter to shareholders. The bank’s private cloud, Meghdoot, hosts more than 400 applications, including UPI, Kiosk Banking, DBT, loan management system and government business solutions. In FY24, it had a 26.81% share in number of mobile banking transactions and sanctioned 17.35 lakh digital loans.