'Al-Driven Unique And Unbiased Solutions, Are The Way Forward'

IDFC FIRST Bank has posted stellar results, and is looking at innovation, riding high on its digital capabilities. In a freewheeling interview with Nidhi Sinha, editor, Outlook Money, and Suchetana Ray, editor, Outlook Business, the bank's executive director and chief operating officer Madhivanan Balakrishnan talks about how they use digital capabilities to enhance customer experience, where interest rates are headed, and its commitment towards issues of financial well-being, including the key issue of retirement planning

- Nidhi Sinha and Suchetana Ray

IDFC FIRST Bank has transformed itself into a digital-oriented retail bank and invested in digital capabilities. How have you helped reshape customers and how are they reshaping you as a bank?

We have been in banking for almost two-and-a-half decades, and there has been a dramatic change over this period. There was a time when people used to flood into branches, and the core idea was to open new branches and have more people to service them. Those days, innovation used to be around physical services like navigating people to the right counter, ensure prompt service etc.

Today, customers do not walk into branches. All of us have 100-150 apps on our phones because that’s the way people have started interacting. Today, your day-to-day life is driven by digital interface and apps as a way of interacting with various stakeholders, and it is equally applicable to banking. We have picked up that cue and worked on making it better.

While we are a very young bank and do not have a legacy in terms of the number of branches, infrastructure, etc., we are singularly focused on how to create that unique moment of experience for every transaction that our customers do and every advice or information that they get.

We address questions like: Can the mobile app be the most effective tool to access any of the banking services and not just payments? For example, can it help you access the customer service centre easily? Is there a mechanism to do things yourself by making it easy, say, by changing the interface and making the journeys more intuitive.