Vol. 20 No. 1 May 2021 `75 Pages 60

Loan Collections pg 6 Digital Transformation pg 12 Women Start-ups pg 22 Dvara KGFS pg 38 Telangana SCB pg 52 www.bankingfrontiers.com www.bankingfrontiers.live

IT firms & their Re-Invention Mantra Presents

Customizing for Customers

oday is a day of specialists. Technology has been the biggest boon for all the segments in this area. Coming to the BFSI sector, where the possibility of differentiation is quite limited Towing to strong regulation, it is the spirit of customer enrolment, customer specialization, Customer preference and finally customer satisfaction. It is this technology which has also ensured that the customers expectations are also set higher and higher in terms of benchmark. CMOs, Chief Customer Heads, Innovation heads, HR heads, IT heads, Operation heads, Sales heads are all faster targeting the customer with specialization. Banking Frontiers is bringing together some luminaries from the BFSI sector and the Technology products and services providers to create an ongoing concept to promote customer Specialization and experience in the financial services and the fintech sector. This concept will be called as C4C and will have some interesting components.

Date July, 7th 2021 Venue Virtual Summit

Please reach out to following Managers to have an elaborate discussion on the program. Please contact for more information: Wilhelm Singh +91 - 773 838 7634 [email protected] Kailash Purohit +91 - 916 779 4613 [email protected] Dhara Thobhani +91 - 900 444 6027 [email protected] Editor’s Blog Manoj Agrawal Mobile : 98673 66111 Email : [email protected]

May 2021 - Vol. 20 No. 1

Group Publisher : Babu Nair Group Editor : Manoj Agrawal Special Days Spread Happiness Editor : N. Mohan ovid’s 2nd wave has unleashed a lockdown that has sent us scurrying back to the safety of our homes. We were forced to Editorial Mehul Dani, Ravi Lalwani, V. Raghuraman Cpostpone our social and entertainment activities Research Editors V. Babu, Ratnakar Deole, into the future, awaiting W.A. Wijewardena, Sanchit Gogia, the arrival of safer times. K.C. Shashidhar, Dr L.S. Subramanian, Whether it is parties or Ajay Kumar picnics or watching movies Advisor-Alliances or dining out…..we have to Ateeq Siddique forsake them all for the time Marketing being. Kailash Purohit, Dhara Thobani, These activities may Rohit Kahar, Aditya Arya seem like luxuries, but in Events & Operations reality, they are necessary for our mental health. The lockdown and WFH Shirish Joshi, Stalin Saldhana, is slowly raising mental health problems, all over the world. Pramod Jadhav, Ashish Verma, There is one small way to alleviate the problem…which is, we must do Wilhelm Singh, Sneha Agrawal, our social interactions digitally. No…this does not mean we send even more Ramesh Vishwakarma greetings and good mornings to an even larger number of people. That does Design not help. We need more face time. So, one of the best ways to replace social Somnath Roy Choudhury, Sudarshan Herle isolation is video interactions and videos. Published By We at Banking Frontiers realized and have started thinking and acting Glocal Strategies & Services outside the traditional B2B box for publications like ours. We did our first D-312, Twin Arcade, Military Road, Marol, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400059, India. set of videos commemorating International Women’s Day, which you can Tel: +91-22-29250166 / 29255569 see at www.bankingfrontiers.live Fax: +91-22-29207563 Next, we picked up Mother’s Day to interview a dozen professional women and their children. The first such video was posted on your YouTube channel bankingfrontierslive, where the women share what problems they Printed & Published by Babu Nair on face and how they solve them. Soon, we will be releasing a video where the behalf of Glocal Strategies & Services and children share what they have learnt from their mothers and what more Printed at Indigo Presss (India) Pvt Ltd., Plot No. 1C/716, Off Dadoji Konddeo Cross they wish to learn. Road, Between Sussex and Retiwala Indl. Then Father’s Day is coming up soon. For this, we propose to interview Estate, Byculla (E), Mumbai 400027. children about their relationship with their fathers. We are looking for boys and girls in the age group 8-12, preferably the talkative types. If you work in Editor: Manoj Agrawal (Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act) the BFSI sector and wish for your child to participate, please let me know. So, we will keep exploring new ways to help you run your business more successfully and we will also be your partner in happiness.

Banking Frontiers May 2021 3 N E W S Regulator

BoE to open hub in Leeds Kuwaiti banks told to The Bank of England is set to open a ‘northern hub’ engage locals in England, as part of a The Central Bank of Kuwait has instructed drive to make the central local banks to appoint Kuwaitis in ‘leadership bank less London-centric. positions’, as part of a drive to create It intends to locate the more job opportunities for the country’s hub in Leeds, the largest nationals. A recent report by the Bank city in Yorkshire, where a had said the number of jobs in the country cash distribution center is decreased by 4.2% during 2020, recording slated to close in 2023. BoE the highest annual employment losses in Governor Andrew Bailey nearly 30 years, due to the repercussions of said in a statement having the corona virus crisis. The pace of foreign a greater proportion of the workers’ departure to be maintained workforce located outside during the coming period in the light of London and the South East will better enable the bank to support its mission. It also the proposed changes to the residency said it plans to expand its staff presence in other parts of the United Kingdom. It is law, the continued implementation of conducting a review to look at the number of staff involved and the timescale. The BoE policies which encourage companies to hire had regional branches for more than 150 years before they closed in the mid-1990s, Kuwaiti workers in lieu of foreign staff and although it maintained a network of representatives across the country, known as agents. the layoffs as companies continue to tackle the effects of the economic crisis. RBA to upgrade its service management system The Reserve Bank of Australia is seeking partners to help it migrate its service management system onto a software-as-a-service cloud platform. The central bank New brand identity for is looking for a platform that will integrate with its Microsoft Azure Active Directory Central Bank of Oman and support 1600 end-users. It wants a system that supports multiple service desks that provide support for IT, workplace, human resources, finance, risk management and workplace health and safety, and payment settlements services. The central bank said it is seeking the technology, implementation and integration services for a cloud- based service management solution which provides integrated capabilities across the following functional areas. The proposed tool should be able to operate in both office and mobile environments with user request and approval workflows available on mobile phones and tablet devices.

RBI sets up advisory panel to help RRA (2.0) The Central Bank of Oman has a new brand The Reserve Bank India has set up an advisory group to assist the second Regulatory identity, which is aimed at better reflecting its Review Authority (RRA 2.0) which was constituted recently to streamline regulations role in Oman’s economic sector. The renewed and reduce the compliance burden of regulated entities. Headed by SBI Managing CBO brand reflects its role, aspirations and its Director S Janakiraman, the advisory group will assist the RRA by identifying regulations, core mandate through which the organization guidelines and returns that can be rationalized. The RRA 2.0 was set up, initially for a seeks to promote the well-being of the banking period of one year from 1 May 2021, with a view to streamline regulations and reduce and financial sector in the country, and thereby the compliance burden of regulated entities. RBI’s Deputy Governor M. Rajeshwar Rao contribute to enhancing the prosperity and was appointed as the Regulations Review Authority. The group will assist the RRA by the overall economic development of the identifying areas, regulations, guidelines, returns which can be rationalised and submit Sultanate. As part of the brand makeover, reports periodically to RRA containing the recommendations/suggestions. the new logo will have 2 significant elements - an icon featuring drawings and motifs and 2 non-bank entities now part of Mada of Saudi Arabia a wordmark comprising the name of the Saudi Payments, the Saudi Central Bank, SAMA’s wholly owned subsidiary, has added organization in Arabic and English lettering. Geidea Solutions and STC Pay to the national payment system (Mada) as the first 2 The National Emblem of the Sultanate non-bank entities. STC Pay has also been enabled to issue Mada cards, both digital and features at the center of the icon, which is plastic, which will allow customers to make electronic payments through points of sale surrounded by motifs derived from the Omani and websites, or to withdraw cash through ATMs inside the Kingdom. Geidea Solutions banknotes issued previously, vis-à-vis the 20 will be able to provide hosting services for POS devices to merchants directly and provide Rial banknote issued commemorating the them with POS devices with full services. Saudi Payments said it would continue to work 40th National Day and the 50 Rial banknote to enable financial technology companies to provide advanced payment solutions as part issued commemorating the 50th National of Saudi Vision 2030 Financial Sector Development Program (FSDP). Day (6th issue).

4 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Expanding Horizons for Fintech in Scotland Nicola Anderson is CEO at Fintech Scotland. She is supporting innovation, people development, strategy, change management, risk mitigation and regulation. She has been a regulator herself:

Babu Nair: Can you speak about the been a great deal of learning happening fintech ecosystem in Scotland? What kind between the local and foreign fintechs. of companies are associated with this ecosystem? How are fintech support others who want Nicola Anderson: Fintech Scotland is to set up business in Scotland? a healthy collaboration of establishments Those who consider Scotland an of various industries, both public and opportunity can be assured of full support private, and also academic institutions. from Scotland Development International. The broad nature of these companies Incentives are being considered for the ensures that there are healthy growth skills landscape. and impactful collaboration. Fintech has the positive opportunity to drive the How can fintechs find talent in Scotland? change in the financial services sector. There is no dearth of talent. We have Our inclusive cluster approach enables us professionals from financial, technological to see that we take along as many players and innovative backgrounds. The as possible. universities in Scotland are helping create The fintech SME community has Nicola Anderson this talent pool. There are lots of fintech grown to 154 in the last 3 years. The real graduate and degree programs being strength lies in the depth of subjects. We offered in the universities. have lots of companies from payments, data What is the investment situation in analytics, open banking, digital currency, Scotland? What changes has the pandemic Among the vast number of technologies, regtech, and so forth. The members of the brought with it? which are the most promising ones? community share lessons and support each There has been an active investment in Entrepreneurs are coming up with other as they develop. The fintech scene in the UK market when it comes to fintechs; very innovative solutions to vast array Scotland is vibrant. the companies which comply with the of problems. They want to deliver real regulations see good growth. A lot of solutions to the people. In the Scottish What is the regulatory scenario for fintechs activity is happening in the payments and Fintech community, it is very prominent in Scotland? digital currency sector. that the purpose behind the business is Luckily, the financial regulatory We have seen $4.1 billion worth of vital. Financial inclusion, payments sector, authority in UK and Scotland in particular investments in the last year. It’s been digital currency are going to see a lot of has been very supportive of the changes. interesting to see investments have risen. innovations. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) This situation has just accelerated the need [email protected] encourages innovations in the financial for digital services in the financial sector. sector. It has established an Innovation Experiential Technologies Sandbox, which is now updated to version How is the market in the UK adjusting to - What Next? 7. This helps the government to be upbeat the fintech ecosystem in Europe? What are about the changes happening in the field of the opportunities for players from other Dharmender fintech. Continuous reviews of the policies markets? Narang take place. It is also beneficial for the new Scottish Development International, Chief Customer entrants to understand the policies. Department for Trade in Scotland and Experience Officer, IIFL FCA has been at the forefront of driving Fintech Scotland are working together. the regulatory changes. The innovative We welcome international businesses Summary: In a world changes in the financial sector are also in Scotland and support the SMEs in where the customer is the king and technology is the being monitored by FCA. The progress the country to look out for international driver transformation, has been positive for the market. With the opportunities. The most promising fields there are ways to use regulatory authority at the forefront, it are open banking and open finance. In technology as a tool for delivering a represents the vibrancy in the UK, and in recent times some international businesses world-class customer experience. particular in Scotland. have settled down in Scotland. There has

Banking Frontiers May 2021 5 Collections Digital eases collections; AI gives early warning signals Insights into the impact of festivals, lockdown and technology on collections, payment mechanisms and customer behaviour:

n earlier days, collection was largely dependent on physical visits of agents Ito the borrowers’ places. However, digitization in the BFSI domain has rendered the activity convenient for both the lenders and the customers. In these times of the pandemic, digitization has also lessened the impact on collections. What indeed hampers collections is the issue of cash flow as customers are severely affected by the lockdown leading to extreme levels of debt. Festivals too play a role in the lack of cash. Fincare Small Finance Bank operates in 19 states of the country and each of Anuj Pandey Vinod P these states has its own set of festivals and events. The bank follows a few simple lockdowns have affected the operations individually and collectively along steps to deal with disruptions to routine of these entities gravely and this has with different attributes such as time, business activities. During festivals or naturally affected their operations geography, sex, profession, or specific known holidays, it prepones payments directly impacting sales and cash flows. instances such as a lockdown. “AI/ML of EMI with the consent of the customer. Naturally, this affects U GRO’s collection technology has grown and attained a good As much as 80-90% of collections are cycles. level of maturity and there is availability done in advance. The bank passes on the Anuj Pandey, Chief Operating Officer of more programmer-friendly tools that benefit of interest to the customers for at U GRO Capital, says: “For us, being software houses are widely leveraging. the period during which collections are nimble in these dynamic times has Prediction of the occurrence, generating made in advance and what makes the helped. We focused our attention towards warning signals and self-learning whole process simple is the digitization understanding the problems faced by capability have matured over a period the bank has adopted. small businesses and worked towards of time. For confirmed occurrences such Soham Shukla, Chief Operating devising pragmatic solutions to ease the as festivals, there are mechanisms where Officer - Rural Banking at Fincare Small situation for our customers.” the EMI or collection of that period Finance, says the bank has been using can be preponed or postponed with the cashless payment systems. “We have IMPACT OF OCCCASIONS concurrence of the customer – so that piloted the UPI mode of collection for According to Vinod P, Director/CSO he is prepared about this. This strategy our JLG customers. During the lockdown at Speridian Technologies, the regular can help customers to plan it properly phase, the same was used to collect EMIs stream collections from individuals gets well in advance and this approach has from customers. However, the percentage affected by joyous occasions such as the benefit of providing better customer of customers who opted for this platform festivals, marriage, school opening, etc, relations,” he says. is relatively low, predominantly due to or conditions such as lockdowns, death, Speridian Technologies enables its lack of awareness or apprehensions about illness, job loss, etc. Some instances can customers to capture the responses of digital transactions in rural and semi- be known upfront and some cannot be customers into the software during a urban markets,” he adds. predicted or quantified. telephonic call or direct visit or via any U GRO Capital provides credit solely He says technology can deal with such other channels to get more insights to the MSMEs. While occasions like bank situation. He points out that collection about the status of the customer and strikes and festivals do not impact the systems have become intelligent and provide options for analysis and to device businesses of its customers negatively, can analyze patterns in transactions next steps.

6 Banking Frontiers May 2021 “One of the leading NBFCs in South India which uses our core lending system for 3 years, has adopted our BEACON Smart collection system during the pandemic period and had a better collection outcome as compared to the previous year,” says Vinod.

LOCKDOWN AND COLLECTIONS Vishal Jain, Head – Collections at Clix Capital, says MSMEs operating in non- essential items employ more personalized ways that helps customers to procure their mindshare to clear their obligation on time or predict the potential impact to Soham Shukla Vishal Jain have an alternate plan to compensate the shortfall and take precautionary measure is enabling its customers in this regard, IMPS, wallets, etc. Vishal of Clix Capital in advance based on the customer especially allowing customers to says that over a period, these payment response. seamlessly make their payments. “What gateways can proactively initiate the Anuj of U GRO Capital reveals that we do is we offer reminder escalations payment transaction at a customer’s during the lockdown period, the company with embedded links to payments, preferred time and date based on past estimated the stress on its portfolio by enabling payments via UPI with Google payment behaviour. These features will using a combination of macroeconomic Pay, PhonePe and all other leading UPI increase the penetration exponentially, data on sectors, financial data from providers. Other than this, customers can he adds. multiple sources and on-ground impact use their mobile apps or web portals for According to Anuj, NACH and by way of collecting feedback directly from IMPS/NEFT payments,” he says. e-NACH have gained tremendous the customers using telephonic surveys. He maintains that analyzing the traction over the past year for repayment “We leveraged the insights gained from customer profile based on the customers’ mechanisms. Their recurring payments this exercise into portfolio management various attributes, transactions and social facility covers the majority of his preparations and provision planning. We media activities are another important company’s customers and in cases utilized the MSME restructuring scheme capability that financial institutions are involving delayed payments, the company available to help our customers, who were depending on apart from CIBIL and other is observing a surge in the use of new-age impacted by the pandemic,” he says. scores. These give a lot of valuable insights payment gateways. U GRO Capital implemented a about the customers and companies are [email protected] mobile-based collection platform with the making customized offers depending on help of its fintech partners to enable real- customers’ financial performance. “The New Umbrella Entity time collection and receipt generation better your performance, the better will thereby rendering the entire collection be your offers that you get from financial – New Era of Fintechs process seamless and convenient for the services providers,” he adds. involved stakeholders. Digital payment methods have seen substantial development in the last 4 POPULAR PAYMENT MECHANISMS to 5 years and major changes are yet to As customers spend a lot of time with come. Soham of Fincare Bank says as a mobiles and the mobile screen time is country, India has made good progress in increasing, digital marketing, online this direction. “However, the opportunity Navin Surya marketing, social media promotions, etc, is large and there is lot of ground to cover. Chairman Emeritus, Payments Council are getting a lot of prominence. Studies For us bank, cashless collection mode is of India reveal that an average person spends 1% of the total collection,” he adds. about 3 hours 15 minutes per day on their Payment gateways backed by BBPS Summary: New smartphone out of which 30% of the time are becoming popular as these can be Umbrella Entities and is more than 2 minutes. customized with the customer’s necessary innovative fintechs are Vinod of Speridian Technologies says information and offer convenient tools shaping the future of mobile-first should be the strategy that for the customer in choosing a mode India. lenders should adopt and his company of payment like UPI, NEFT, RTGS,

Banking Frontiers May 2021 7 Lending Biz Mobile app becomes the epicenter of business Beyond apps, PrestLoans is looking at an end-to-end data rich digital platform:

tarted in 2017, PrestLoans is an providing all data through mobile app. NBFC focusing on lending to Hence, we don’t consider app downloads Ssmall businesses and MSMEs. The which is generally used by ultra-micro loans company, trying to address the affordable for extremely short tenure. Our app works credit needs to underserved small very well on mobile phones and hence we businesses, has witnessed robust growth in are able to work well with a good quality the last 4 years, building a mixed portfolio smart phone,” says Ashok. of secured and unsecured MSME loans. It PrestLoans has an integrated app, has partnered with various larger lenders which is used by its sales team and agents for debt funding and providing fast and for new loan origination. The same app is affordable credit to the MSME sector. used by the credit team for underwriting Ashok Mittal, a seasoned professional using Prest Score and by the recovery having a rich experience of more than 20 team, where the team can see the overdue years in banking and financial services, is accounts and generate receipts of amounts the Founder & CEO of the company. recovered from defaulting borrowers. The HR app is used by all the employees for PLATFORM FOLLOWERS UP attendance, payroll, expense claim, etc. PrestLoans has been a tech enabled digital focused lending company since LOANS BY MISSED CALL, WEB beginning, where a client can directly Ashok Mittal claims that more The company’s business has been stagnant apply for a loan, upload documents and than 10,000 people follow in the financial year 2020-21 due to very view the status of application at various PrestLoans’ Facebook page high impact of the lockdown and the stages in the disbursement process. moratorium announced by the RBI. Ashok The internal process of underwriting to this area, and our social media focus says most of the business is originated also involves digital implementation to is also concentrated in this geographical online as customers approach the company smoothen the process. area,” says Ashok. by using the ‘missed call service’ or applying Ashok Mittal states that the company On its LinkedIn page, the company has online through the website. All the sourcing adopted an aggressive strategy post the more than 1100 followers, which has seen agents are able to provide loan documents, first phase of covid in March 2020. “We 30%+ yoy growth in the last 3 years. Says KYC, bank statement, etc, through the app have used social media platforms more Ashok: “We have seen good number of likes or website. efficiently to stay connected with the and comments on our posts. While our “We have been cautious in granting customers and to keep them updated about followers on Instagram are few hundred, fresh loans due to uncertainty of cashflow various products, services, payments, we have seen some of the posts reaching in few businesses like travel, export, import, dues, government announcements etc,” to more than 6000 people with good likes toys and non-essential items, while we have he says. and comments.” limited fresh exposure to grocery, medical, The company is present on social media daily usage related businesses,” says Ashok. platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, APP IMPROVES EFFICIENCY YouTube, Instagram, Blogger, Medium, Its mobile app has substantially increased SEVERAL VENDORS: OPEX UP etc. The company has more than 10,000 its sourcing, underwriting and collection PrestLoans uses various products and followers on its Facebook page, which has process, which in turn, says Ashok, has services to meet its technology requirement. seen about 50% growth on yoy basis. About improved the efficiency, hence faster Says Ashok: “In today’s world, technology 89% of them are male and the rest female; services and turnaround time (TAT) for is like a commodity and we need to use 50% of them are in the 25-34 years age the customer. various partners to get the best out of the group. “Since we largely operate in Delhi “We are servicing the MSME segment, available products and services. We use NCR and Rajasthan, most of them belong which is not very tech savvy and comfortable Amazon Web Services for data and LMS,

8 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Outlook 365 for the mail server, GreytHR for people management services (employee payroll processing) and Perfios for bank statement analysis and other underwriting related services. Web and app-based CRM is prepared and managed by SR Tekbox. We also use the services of Karza for various authentications, etc.” The company’s use of Amazon Web Services has increased substantially. In some cases, it uses SaaS platforms. Most Ashok Mittal engages Rajeev Kishore Dubey (left, Ex CMD-Canara Bank) as strategic advisor of the cost increases on digital initiatives on advisory Board of Prest Loans in April 2021 have been on the opex side. There are about 6 people at the company who are add few unique features in the mobile attendance system, internal controls etc are directly involved in tech development and app for customer for faster services, ease gradually moving to digital. coordination work. of use and better customer experience. Ashok says: “Whether it is our customers The customers themselves can check/ or our team members, we continue to API FOR PARTNER PORTALS track their status anytime by giving stay very bullish on further digitization of The company has several employees now the credentials. This creates a good processes and services.” working from home. Ashok says: “Our relationship with them. The solution also employees and officers have been using helps us in maintaining and protecting FUTURE PLANS tablets and multiple apps on the phone the data for follow-ups, reminders and He adds that the intention in introducing for origination, underwriting, collection, offering other services in future.” digital initiatives is to assist stakeholders attendance, partner services, etc. They in achieving growth through customized and our agents also use desktops, laptops, ONLINE PROMOTIONS financing solutions and support the mobile phones and handsfree gadgets.” The company’s social media promotional financial inclusion initiative for the MSME campaigns are not always for targeting sector in India. AUM GROWTH 80% clients. It announces its participation He also points out another aspect: Ashok justifies the company’s reason for in various virtual seminars, winning “As the world is still in the throes of the not taking up expansion to other areas of awards, staff performance and pandemic, providing continuous services apart from Delhi NCR and Rajasthan. “We achievements, celebration of festivals etc on to the customers during such time is consider this region a fairly large MSME social media. Ashok says this has received possible only by extensive use of technology. market and hence we have not yet gone an unexpected feedback. “For example, one Reliance and dependency on technology to many other states. Technically, NCR of our promotions was rewarding a sales have risen tremendously. For a NBFC like covers UP and Haryana state as well. Our executive’s performance with a chocolate us, IT and digital uses are always good yoy AUM growth in the last 3 years has and appreciation in front of entire office options to reduce capital expenditure and been about 80% in terms of value and staff. We shared it on social media and it improve the efficiency of workflow. This volume. Most of our customers are in the became viral overnight with more than also benefits the customers to reach our 25-45 years age group, with 80% of them 45,000 views on LinkedIn. Similarly, some platform easily and get quick response from being male.” other posts got 15,000-25000 views. We us at various stages of process.” had also run a contest, during which time He adds that the company is ANALYTICS FOR CRM we saw a jump of 77% in the number of continuously exploring new ways of using PrestLoans has developed an in-house viewers during that month, which rose from technology, particularly ML and AI, for algorithm to track customer profiles and 170,000 to 300,000,” he says. better services to its customers. “In times behaviours and capture key data points to come, we would create a complete digital of its customers related to their personal, BULLISH ON DIGITIZATION platform for lending process to make it easy social, business, banking, and financial Digital is a big thing at PrestLoans as it and hassle-free for the customers. That information. These data points are analyzed aims to bring in operational efficiency in means starting from application received using various AI and ML tools from time to all its processes and accuracy at every stage to disbursement, the entire process will time and updated on regular basis. of the process - like integration with the be analyzed automatically. And not just The company uses its CRM system partners to capture data, backend financial lending but for borrowing all the required both on the web and through the app analysis, report generation, collection data data will be just a finger touch away,” and the system is integrated with the etc. And for the team digital is a must for he says. LMS. Says Ashok: “We are planning to smoothened and hassle-free workflow. The [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 9 IT Risk Scenario Security awareness addresses shadow IT project risks Gopal Balachandran, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer at ICICI Lombard General Insurance, discusses the need for enhancing security:

Ravi Lalwani: What is your perspective occasions may also be not technically on improvements in detection and feasible. prevention of malware and attacks by BFSI organizations during 2020? How is the shift to containerization Gopal Balachandran: Given the rising changing the approach towards trend of cyberattacks and ransomware application security? attacks, most organizations are focusing Keeping containers secure throughout on getting their IT and security strategy the development life cycle represents many right for timely detection and prevention challenges to security and development of all security incidents. A lot of focus is on teams. Implementing a well-defined ensuring an effective Security Operations and tested DevSecOps model is the most Center (SOC) with capabilities such as effective approach to addresses security in security automation, orchestration and containerized environments. response. Many organizations have started testing their incident response management Any examples of business units stepping capabilities with attack simulation exercises. forward to take charge of security aspects for their applications and data? What types of Security-as-a-Service Business teams taking lead in have proven to be technically successful Gopal Balachandran identifying new solutions to address during 2020? What commercial benefits appreciates 3 things about business problems or to improve of Security as a Service have been opex model services: (i) productivity is evident in almost every realized? extremely competitive prices industry. This shadow IT approach does Most OEMs are now moving from increase the risk for an organization, but we a data center-focused capex-based (ii) speed at which POCs can believe good due diligence, risk management long-term project model to opex-based be conducted to test and and change management practices along services. This phenomenon is particularly validate these services and (iii) with effective security awareness across on the fast track with the rising trend of ease of deployment the organization are required to address adoption of public cloud services by many risk arising from such shadow IT projects. global and large-scale organizations. older applications with the latest IT and No specific example but we can emphasize SOC, end detection and response, security technologies / capabilities are the awareness amongst business teams to web application firewall, real-time cloud probably the most evident difference. ensure security team involvement and sign posture monitoring and management, A lot of customization may be required off for such projects. breach attack simulation, etc, are some to secure older applications which on [email protected] of the successful implementations of Securities-as-a-Service. Building the Unicorn NEXT (Technoviti 2021) Apart from the commercial benefits in terms of software in opex mode at extremely competitive prices, I believe the speed at which Proof of Concept (POCs) can be conducted to test and validate these services and the ease of deployment are the key benefits of this approach.

Can you comment on the differences in Promoters and providers of banking platforms security cover for older applications vs The panellists discuss the ecosystem that is required to build unicorns in the newer applications? payments services apace. Compatibility and integration of

10 Banking Frontiers May 2021 The Lending Journey FSI lenders leverage smarter applications & platforms with Lentra & Nutanix D Venkatesh, Founder at Lentra, and Rajesh Krishnia, Country Head-BFSI at Nutanix, share a clear picture on how ‘lending’ has evolved over the last couple of years.

Babu Nair: Credit off-take has been hit during larger ecosystem for during an application the pandemic. What role is technology playing? greater leverage. Lentra’s process, compared to a D Venkatesh: Operational areas requiring integrations and open API single calling traditional a higher degree of touch have been digitized framework allows lenders banking BRE systems. successfully. For example, the manually to collaborate easily and Our customers call this intensive KYC process is now being executed quickly with the emerging feature multi-BRE. via digital media combined with API based ecosystem. Rajesh Krishnia: FSI Rajesh Krishnia D Venkatesh verification. Lentra’s eKYC, video-based KYC Rajesh Krishnia: customers are looking at - and Personal Discussion (videoPD) solutions Fintechs have no challenge of legacy and platform players to provide then capabilities like have turned out to be game changers ever are also bound by less stringent regulations WORM, Encryption with KMS, BCP, Anomaly since the pandemic struck. compared to banks. The key for banks is to detection and Remediation to enhance their Digital data sources are increasingly being modernize and transform their application compliance and risk management. For us at used to augment applicant data for better and landscape to gain level playing field. Nutanix Nutanix, security and compliance are part of quicker decisions. Operational automation Hybrid cloud platform serves both existing our software development life cycle and not an has greatly enhanced application processing as well as new applications at the same time after-thought. throughput. Lentra’s customers use eligibility helps build agility through automation in grids, deviation matrices, evaluation rules, DevOps and infra workflow. How are you icing the lending process scorecards and data integrations extensively management with analytics? to reach rapid decisions on loans seamlessly EWS has become the norm. How is D Venkatesh: Extensive analytics is and easily. technology powering this? built right into the LentraGoNoGo system. Better qualified applications lead to D Venkatesh: Technology systems have Data and analytics are key when it comes reduced rejections, reduced credit risk, come a long way when it comes to predictive to widely distributed loan products. Newer increased productivity and reduced customer algorithms. Risk and fraud systems can now areas of opportunity lie around the data acquisition cost. Lentra’sGoNoGo platform sift through terabytes of collated data to create driven development of tailored products, suite enables banks in achieving very high models which can then quite easily be used to cross product sales, channel integrations, algorithmic decisioning capability reducing locate, well ahead of time, customers who may embedded finance, customer acquisition and human underwriting to 20% or less. default. The pandemic has fast-tracked the risk-based pricing. Rajesh Krishnia: Banks and NBFCs are adoption of EWS by our customers. AI/ML Rajesh Krishnia: Nutanix makes data a customer-driven business today and want driven scorecards for address verifications, storage and access management very easy as 100% focus from all teams, on customer needs migrant risk evaluations, geographical risk storage, compute, networking, availability and and experience, while they expect partners evaluations and geofencing. security come together in the hyper converged such as Nutanix, to provide the platform on Rajesh Krishnia: At the infrastructure or cluster infrastructure. which they can build and offer these solutions. the platform layer, Nutanix provides anomaly From DevOps Automation to Unified Data detection to prevent a malicious attack which What technology paradigms will create Layers to Security, Nutanix offers customers is directed towards technology gap. Its AI/ further efficiency in lending? the right set of tools to enable digital ML engine provides Lentra auto remediation D Venkatesh: India needs industry wide initiatives. Additionally, End-user Computing functionality to seamlessly run application standards / policies for secure data sharing solutions from Nutanix, ensure that Banks are without any problem. and exchange while managing the customer’s able to deliver on CX and innovation as well privacy with explicit consent. Some of these as maintain BAU operations, even if their How is technology facilitating TAT reduction paradigms are unfolding quite nicely today employees have to ‘work-from-home’ as is without compromising compliance and risk in the form of OCEN, Sahamati the consent necessitated by covid. management? framework, and Account Aggregators. D Venkatesh: Digital data sources are Rajesh Krishnia: Customers are today How can banks compete with fintechs increasingly being used to augment applicant looking at digital transformation of their on agility? data for quicker superior decisions. Lentra’s business, including lending, on a hybrid D Venkatesh: Banks need to take a Business Rules Manager (BREX) lets a bank cloud journey in conjunction with workforce holistic view of the changing landscape and run a comprehensive rule set on extensive data modernization. Management simplicity and embrace technology as well as business received from various sources in real-time. workload mobility are key foundations on process changes. Banks also have to take a We see our customers typically configure the which new lending tech platforms will be built. collaborative approach and work with the system to make 3 calls to our BREX solution [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 11 For Agility Digital transformation demands deep thinking Sachin Dutta, Chief Operating Officer, Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance and Rahul Chopra, Chief Digital Officer, Clix Capital, share the roadmap for their institutions in adopting digital transformation:

ccording to the BFSI industry setup over time will lead to complexity and experts, 2021 will witness the next issues. But it will be a delight for vendors Awave of digital transformation on selling such propositions,” he adds. ease of business sourcing and leveraging He also insists that understanding of ways to utilize analytics aggressively, to architecture is critical and enforcing strict make propositions sharper and precise for discipline in terms of what to be plugged the customer in line with customer’s need, in is important. “It is for this purpose making risk management more effective. that we have strong governance via the Another area that will witness rapid growth architecture review group that looks at is the externalization of rule sets meaning making changes to core architecture that the BFSI companies shall integrate better are more sustainable and insulates from with external services and ride on various frequent changes in the present or the technological capabilities that the market future. Architectural alignment has cloud has to offer. A lot of innovation will be adoption as part of its core capability with driven in servicing which has a significant a focus on multi-cloud strategy,” he adds. uptake during covid, but the servicing was Rahul believes that cloud-first strategies less approached with complete digital will dominate digital growth. Every new agenda in mind and was more of a survival digital division will embrace innovation need during the pandemic. Sachin Dutta see more through ecosystems. “And I expect a Sachin Dutta, Chief Operating Officer, insurers moving towards further 50% of enterprises to make cloud- Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce microservices to make centric transformation a priority, moving Life Insurance Co, says: “There is an business-critical operational apps and all opportunity to simplify and bring it at par changes more manageable, experience apps into the cloud. A key part with other financial products. There could faster and scalable of this strategy will be aligning internal and be further adoption of bots, especially voice external resources, which organizations bots, in 2021 and customers getting familiar “2021 is the year in which most should do with a specific strategy in mind, with these offerings. From an architecture businesses will invest in having a full- like a customer or business outcome.” standpoint, we could see more insurers fledged digital presence. More than moving towards adoption of microservices 30% of worldwide businesses will create APPLICATION & APPROACHES architecture and going for containerized digital divisions and ‘buy’ buttons will be As users today expect a lightning-fast load setups thereby making changes more everywhere,” he elaborates. time, high availability 24x7 and minimal manageable, faster and scalable.” disruptions on the user experience According to Rahul Chopra, Chief ARCHITECTURE & DISCIPLINE regardless of how many other people are Digital Officer, Clix Capital, the year For the insurance industry, different trying to access the web content, Clix Capital 2020 was hijacked by a global pandemic drivers of technology are interrelated is focusing on effective user interface and that is taking its toll on us, but there is and interdependent and efficiency and customer support, because, in case it one arena that is smiling bright – digital experience have always been key priorities fails to deliver to its users, customers will transformation. while all investments are made keeping in simply abandon the app for more scalable He says digital transformation is no mind to robust architecture and backbone web applications that offer a better user longer a ‘should have’ component, it is now which ensures a bright future. Sachin experience. an ‘essential revolution’ for organizations agrees that there should be more similarity According to Rahul, applications worldwide, no matter what size and and commonality at the backend as diverse that require high scalability should be segment they belong to. As 2020 is past elements or components of the architecture based on microservices architecture and and 2021 is in, digitization has shown could derail the efficiency agenda. enterprises can adapt to ‘The hybrid Cloud certain eye-striking transformations, “It may not solve the experience agenda Architecture’. A decentralized architecture more so because of the pandemic, in the long term. While it may show some is a must when building scalable web he adds. initial good results, managing this diverse apps. Modern web development relies

12 Banking Frontiers May 2021 heavily on microservices. The hybrid Cloud methodology can differ from company to Architecture’ separates applications into company as different companies decide it decentralized systems, loosely coupled based on their needs and budget. From all, components and lightweight protocols. Agile is one of the best methodologies, which Unlike monolith architecture, this approach helps in continuous improvements, says he. allows one to develop, test, maintain and Rahul shares the benefits of adopting the upgrade individual web services as separate Agile technology: “The primary benefit of modules without affecting the entire app or Agile software development is that it allows the workflow, says he. the software to be released in iterations. He adds: “Hybrid cloud, as the name Iterative releases improve efficiency by suggests, has been offering the right blend allowing teams to find and fix defects and of public and private cloud offerings. It align expectations early on. They also allow signifies a diverse computing, storage, users to realize software benefits earlier, and services environment comprising of with frequent incremental improvements. on-premises infrastructure, private cloud In microservice architecture like ours in services, and/or a public cloud.” Clix, Agile development methodology is He also maintains that enterprises have core to any project management.” been benefitting heavily because of this hybrid nature of the cloud. Top tech giants Rahul Chopra is convinced QUICK & COST-EFFECTIVE ADOPTION like Google, Azure, AWS, Oracle, etc have about digital transformation Sachin believes that increasing cloud been investing in this technology. adoption depends on the maturity state Applications that have a growing need as an ‘essential revolution’ for of the organization and the level of legacy for scalability must be assessed from a organizations worldwide setups. The more legacy setups one deals cloud deployment standpoint. As a part with, the more difficult it will be to move of its cloud adoption strategy, Canara microservices-based and its back-end things to the cloud. It cannot be a simple HSBC OBC Life Insurance Co looks at systems like workflow are designed to be lift and shift, it requires an assessment of such opportunities while balancing against either cloud or cloud-ready. The company’s current architecture, some may require the risk side of the equation and the approach to technology is to keep it simple re-platforming, etc which would be time- architecture fitment or alignment. Cloud and not make it complex to manage. consuming, costly, and complex. provides multi-fold benefits but in return Sachin provides details: “We have He explains: “Nonetheless, any it expects a certain level of scale or business designed solutions on containerized setups organization has to start from somewhere, growth to neutralize the efficiency equation. thereby making these more manageable, and once on that journey, one starts Says Sachin: “It not only provides scalable, and elastic. Unlike the market, it to learn how to build and scale. If on scalability but also ensures elasticity and is not at all about overdoing in this space the other hand, the end users for these resilience. On the other hand, applications and making interventions which are sharp applications are employees or company’s that are not expected to be critical, do not and can get better outcome rather than staff, then using thin client solutions or have sensitive information, or have scalability just being in headlines. We want to pass on conventional VPN setups can help to as a key attribute, can be considered for technology benefits to our customers and provide anytime, anywhere computing. on-premises deployment or subscribing make risk management more effective for The key consideration in both the options to shared usage of such applications. us as we are in the business of underwriting is the security supporting this solution. It Another radical thought is to see why such mortality risk. Hence, using technology to all depends on who the end customer is applications exist on management radar that balance this equation is a must.” for these applications and the solution has does not need scalability.” Clix Capital uses the Agile development to cater to the needs of the end-user and He further added: “The approach methodology to minimize risk such as bugs, keeping information secure.” on technology is must, at the end of the cost overruns and changing requirements Rahul foresees cloud computing as the day, converge to how the end customer when adding new functionality. There future: “You can call it efficiency, or call it wants proposition or services and how are many different forms of the Agile doing more with less. But whichever spin much money is considered good enough development method, including Scrum, you prefer, cloud computing lets you focus to be spent under the heads of efficiency, Crystal, Extreme Programming (XP), and on what is important. Cloud computing can scalability, availability, and security.” Feature-driven Development (FDD). be used for almost all types of applications. According to Rahul to manage a project Our big data layer is cloud-based and it’s APPLICATIONS & AGILITY efficiently, one must choose the software easy to switch on, simple to expand and Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance Co development methodology that can work contract,” he says. has an architecture that is completely best for that project. The development [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 13 Shriram Transport Finance Apps, WFH, VPN & VDI save the day Additionally, AI & ML deployed for sales and service:

hriram Transport Finance support for insurance businesses through Company has played a credible digital technology platforms. Srole in financial inclusion of Manoj Jain: Mostly, we deal with millions of First Time Buyers (FTBs) internal group companies and limited and driver-turned owners (DTO) by outside vendors. So, there was no need offering affordable finance on pre-owned to change the partners. Existing partners commercial vehicles. Established in 1979, adopted and supported in our efforts to the company is an asset financing NBFC move to WFH model. with pan-India network of 1758 branches, 831 rural centres and partnerships with Has the number of outsourced people 500 private financiers. for IT services gone up or down during Shriram Life Insurance, also part the pandemic? of the Shriram group, has an overall P. Sridharan: We already had our customer base in excess of 19 million, mobile and digital solutions for some having more than 75,000 employees time now. Our digital platforms are across 3800 offices, with net profit of also in place. While we saw a significant `22 billion and AUM in excess of `1.50 uptick in adoption during the lockdown trillion. period, we didn’t have much need to scale P. Sridharan, Joint Managing P. Sridharan explains that up the team, though certain strategic Director, Shriram Transport Finance STFC has automated major hiring continues. Company and Manoj Kumar Jain, Manoj Jain: We have a strong IT Managing Director, Shriram Life business functions through team supporting our group companies. Insurance, discuss ways of tackling the digital technology platforms We have limited dependency in IT changing needs of IT services for their with outsourced employees. So, there is respective group companies amid the departments. IT services and support are no up or down in the team during this uncertain times of the pandemic. also happening remotely now. pandemic. Our vendors supported us well. Mehul Dani: How have requirements for Has the response from IT companies IT services changed during the pandemic changed in any way? What new IT services were outsourced times compared to earlier periods? P. Sridharan: No. The IT companies during the pandemic? P. Sridharan: Usage of mobile quickly moved to the work from home P. Sridharan: The focus was more on platforms has significantly gone up. model. mobile and digital solutions. We re-imagined customer journeys and Manoj Jain: Our technology partners Manoj Jain: No IT services were introduced an end-to-end frictionless changed a lot and supported us based on outsourced during the pandemic. Our experience platform ‘Your Mobile, Your our requirements. Suddenly, we changed internal teams IT, admin and operations Branch’ for our customers to simplify our working environment from offline to planned together and supported during on-boarding and servicing. Most of the online. the pandemic. WFH / VPN (Virtual new business activities, which are usually Private Network) / VDI (Virtual desktop done at the branch can now be done on Have you changed your IT service infrastructure) connectivity helped mobile. We have been fairly successful partners or mostly continued with the us for business continuity plan (BCP) due to the ease of use of our customer- existing partners? during the pandemic. Our IT team’s size facing applications that can be seen in P. Sridharan: No. We have engaged is 50+. It consists of infra procurement, the quantum of business and collections/ Novac Technology Solutions, our IT support, requirement, priorities, payments sourced digitally. services arm, as a technology partner. project management, UAT support, Manoj Kumar Jain: Lot of changes We have automated our major business MIS (channels, regulatory, IIB), audits have been made in IT services, operations functions viz lead management, loan (Internal, ISO, CISA & Security), etc. and in sales too. WFH (work from home) origination, customer service solutions enablement started with key people and for lending businesses; policy generation, Which IT service do you think will extended to all levels of all key functional claims management and customer increase and which will decrease?

14 Banking Frontiers May 2021 P. Sridharan: Technology has always salespeople. Leads are supplied to sales been our focal point and the company has officers for cross-selling during the been enthusiastic about the potential pandemic period. Connectivity, security of technology to improve customer systems required hardware, OTP experience. We are always at the forefront authentication for customer consents of adopting new technologies that can have been enabled. help companies in acquiring, retaining More than 108,000 customers or in servicing customers effortlessly. downloaded our ShriMithra app, the We have adopted Artificial Intelligence customer service app, as against just (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) driven 20,000 in the previous financial years. solutions both in sales and service and 22 unique, essential customer services this focus will increase. options are enabled in the ShriMithra Manoj Jain: Pandemic forced most app. From less than 1% in the previous of the companies to go for digitization. years, more than 10% of the total customer Digital/online sales, paperless services services have happened through this app. and mobile app (B2C & B2B) usage We have focussed on our distribution in have increased. Customers have started the non-urban and rural markets. We using mobile apps and preferably using are doing the difficult job of reaching online modes for their services. Offline Manoj Jain reveals that `2.15 out to these centers and are working services have decreased. Customers are billion new business has been on developing our distribution rather offered with a range of digital options than focussing in the highly crowded, for payments towards premium renewal. sourced in FY2021 through competitive metro markets. More than `3.2 billion of renewal Astra app Astra is a mobile based app helping premium has been collected through the sales team to digitally onboard the non-cash and non-cheque modes. Overall personnel have been trained through customers, for which we have more than digital adoption was in 55% of branches video conference in a 2-way ‘Shriram Life 25,000 users. Close to 100,000 policies in 2019-20, which increased to 79% for Digital Payments Paymathon’ to promote are issued through this app. More than branches in FY’21. Nearly 2000+ sales digital payments. `2.15 billion new business (NB) has Nearly 100,000 plus PDF copies of been sourced from 96,000 proposals in policy bonds have been sent through bulk FY’21 through this app. 61% of our total SMS based bitly link to our customers NB is from app & other digital modes as over and above physical dispatches in compared to 19% in the last FY. these pandemic times. [email protected]

Highlight how IT services have Fintech Israel – Outlook & contributed to the increase in your Opportunities business and customer base in 2020-21. P. Sridharan: With ever-increasing customer expectations, customer centricity has become more important than ever. We deployed digital technologies to reduce the need for the physical presence of customers at branches, providing internet, mobile touchpoints and extending AI capabilities Nir Netzer into process automation. This has Chairman, Israeli Fintech Association involved augmenting the digital channels Summary: Nir Netzer viz internet, mobile and social networks discusses the current with guided experiences for enquiries, scenario of the fintech services and payment. Currently, about ecosystem in Israel and 60% of the new business transactions are describes the trending happening through mobile. technologies that are empowering Manoj Jain: Mobile apps are growth. enhanced to support front-end

Banking Frontiers May 2021 15 Towards AI-First Transforming into an AI-First organization Mehmood Mansoori, President - Shared Services & Online Business at HDFC ERGO delves on leveraging AI and reaping benefits: Ravi Lalwani: Briefly describe 3 important What technologies and technology AI projects initiated during the lockdown companies were associated with the projects? and what were the business objectives of We have a robust IT infrastructure and these projects? team and believe in building most of the Mehmood Mansoori: One of the solutions in-house. But we are always on things that covid has taught us over the the lookout for new technologies and hence past year is the power of the internet. With have partnered with some leading tech the country in complete lockdown during companies and start-ups across various the initial days of the pandemic, digital domains. We are investing in the right adoption became the way of life. HDFC talent and training internal resources with ERGO has been at the forefront of driving the right aptitude in AI technology and innovation in AI for its customers and moving to become an AI-First Company. the pandemic gave us further impetus to enable our customers by putting the power What are the main internal and external of digital and AI in their hands. Some of data sources for the projects? the important initiatives we took forward With a customer base of more than during the lockdown are: 15 million customers, we have sufficient Mehmood Mansoori Servicing customers through data for AI. We also use previous data of AI-enabled bots: We offered several customer services at various touchpoints to services to our customers through digital Which objectives were easily achieved, train our AI models. platforms to ensure seamless servicing, as and which were tougher? well as to ensure their well-being while they Our key objective was to offer a hassle- Briefly describe the team structure, size stayed at home. These services were offered free experience to our customers, be it at and members that developed, tested and through AI-enabled bots like DIA (Digital the time of buying a policy, renewing it, or rolled out the project. Insurance Assistant), WhatsApp bot, and at the time of claim. We are proud to say Backed with an extensive team of eMail bot (eRA), which ensured real-time that we successfully managed to achieve it. professionals, we have invested hugely servicing 24x7. Today, more than 55% of Given the complexity of requests in technology. Also, we have a dedicated customers’ requests are serviced digitally involved in the insurance domain, it is a digital innovation lab where around 30 through these platforms and in the last 6 daunting task to use bots. For instance, sharp minds are continuously exploring months, despite all constraints, we have when a customer writes us an email for a emerging technologies and experimenting witnessed an upward trend in our NPS. service, there is a complexity involved and on various use cases. Once the lab finds the AI-based motor claims processing: it is not as simple as requesting a cheque right fit, it is handed over to our technology On the motor insurance front, we launched book or a bank statement. Moreover, our team who runs a project and takes it to the the AI module IDEAS (Intelligent Damage every response is a legal commitment to our production stage. Detection Estimation and Assessment customers, which means our solutions need Solution) for the settlement of claims. The to be accurate. Further, when the customer Briefly describe the challenges faced IDEAS module uses neural network image approaches us, especially during the claim, during the project and the lessons learned. processing & analytics, machine learning, it becomes imperative to demonstrate To work on AI technologies requires and natural language that supports instant empathy. We have trained our bots with the patience. One must experiment with the damage detection, as well as calculation of help of behavioural scientists, which have vast amount of data intelligently and train the claims and estimate for the surveyors to also matured our AI solutions. models. Further, the resultant technology help in motor claims settlement in real-time. We are overly excited about the may also need to be fine-tuned with WhatsApp & Telegram: To take our possibilities and investing the best of our business realities. Also, for an effective AI, services to tier 2 & 3 towns where internet talent in such initiatives. Now, we have one may need to tweak business processes penetration is good, but consumers are not several high-impact use cases. Around 30% as well. All these require not only sharp tech so comfortable using mobile apps or self- of our digital servicing is catered through minds but creative business champions service portals, we launched our natural AI, which is making a huge difference. who can think of out-of-the-box, use cases, language processing-based services on Our turnaround time has improved and work closely with tech teams to help WhatsApp and Telegram, which turned out significantly, which is adding to our implement solutions. to be a big success. operational efficiencies. [email protected]

16 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Open Banking APIs engages corporates, fintechs, aggregators & neo banks Experts on open banking discuss topics such as API partners, benefits, categorization, role of KPIs, security, analytics, valuables & controls:

PIs provide banks with real- time data that enables them to Aanalyse and look deeper into financial behavior of customers. Using this information, banks are able to provide more personalized products, undertake targeted engagement and cross-sell and do better credit underwriting. This results in enhanced customer experience and the ability for banks to empower them in their financial journey.

PRIMARY & SECONDARY PARTNERS Kotak Mahindra Bank has enabled API- Deepak Sharma Prakash Lal led partnerships with multiple institutions across industries. The bank has around cater to the customers needs. “Broadly, we can also been a rise in fraudulent activities. 250+ partners that leverage its state-of- categorize our APIs into lending, payments + Hackers are behind the sensitive customer the-art API infrastructure to generate collections, and account service APIs.” information and financial institutions need business value. Deepak Sharma, President to invest in a world-class robust cybersecurity & Chief Digital Officer at the bank, says: KPI FOR API mechanism to thwart any attacks. “Our API services are used by partners An API infrastructure is more about Fino Payment Bank has an SSO-based across corporates, fintechs, aggregators, enabling multiple use cases for one’s key mechanism where it has multiple neo banks, etc. Our APIs have also enabled partners on a real-time basis. The BFSI layers of authentications. Says Prakash: many use cases in government departments. industry has seen many ground-breaking “Customer data and transaction data are We have a sophisticated API infrastructure innovations led by digital transformation. the most valuable items that hackers are servicing multiple use cases of various Use cases like UPI, video KYC as well as attempting to extract. We have a high level industries and sectors.” instant refunds, cash backs, etc, are made of security on the infra side and a high level Prakash Lal, Vice President (Products) possible by the innovative and robust of encryption. Currently, this suits best at Fino Payments Bank, says the bank’s implementation of API-led integrations. for us. Likewise, organizations can choose primary partners are fintech players who According to Deepak, APIs have been what is best for them.” are into servicing customers on assisted the pathway to achieving operational He adds that data gives deep insights and/or self-channel. Neo-banks are another efficiency and excellence in terms of and that analytics can be performed based segment that we are targeting.” integration efforts, timelines, and exploring on various parameters like user patterns several new use cases. This has empowered and geographical patterns. CATEGORIZATION OF API the bank to drive its core business in Security is the priority at Kotak Mahindra For API categorization, banks look at exponential increments that deliver greater Bank where every API integration passes customer on-boarding, service and new customer convenience and delight while through the microscopic lens of risk teams, product development as their top priorities. at the same time opening new business compliance teams and IT security teams, It also depends upon the business use case opportunities. that evaluate not only bank infrastructure of the partners. For Prakash, primary KPI is high but also thoroughly examine partner IT Prakash explains: “We categorize transaction processing. Other KPIs include architecture for any vulnerabilities. Says APIs into transaction and account-based. integration time, speed, support, resolution, Deepak: “OAuth tokenization, payload Further, the transactions are categorized high transparency, and high uptime. encryption, checksum validation, to name into type of transactions, value-based and a few, are the standards that we follow, and authentication modes.” MAIN VALUABLES & CONTROLS we continuously evaluate and upgrade our Deepak says Kotak Mahindra Bank While digitization has accelerated innovation security protocols at regular intervals.” makes sure its API infrastructure is ready to and opened many new use cases, there has [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 17 Pandemic Impact Bankers WFO, Out-sourced Staff WFH Indian Bank has outsourced application development and testing for non-critical applications to external vendors during the pandemic:

ndian Bank has undertaken a number of Application development and testing for digital initiatives in 2020-21. During the non-critical applications are outsourced to Ipandemic, it has enabled acceptance of external vendors. NCMC (National Common Mobility Card) cards in contactless mode in retail POS Which IT service do you think will increase machines, RTGS 24x7 through internet and which will decrease? banking and positive pay system in internet Various IT services are likely to be banking. Deepak Sarda, GM, ITD / Chief increased during and after the pandemic, Technology Officer, elaborates on what the including: 1. net banking, 2. mobile banking, bank has done to meet its requirements for 3. UPI, 4. IMPS, 5. NEFT/RTGS, 6. SMS IT services during the last FY. banking, 7. balance enquiry and transaction statement through SMS, 8. cyber security, 9. Mehul Dani: How have requirements for adoption of WFH working models, 10. online IT services changed during the pandemic loan requests & processing, 11. online account times compared to earlier times? opening and 12 virtual meetings. IT services Deepak Sarda: The pandemic has which are likely to be decreased, include changed the way we looked at traditional branch transactions, account opening through banking and has shown the need and branches and DD & cheque environment. importance of digital banking. Digital Deepak Sarda feels that transactions have grown exponentially and branch transactions, account Can you explain how IT services have the footfalls in branches have reduced. contributed to increase the business and The total financial and non-financial opening through branches and customer base and customer satisfaction transactions of Indian Bank have increased DD-cheque environment are in 2020-21. at a linear rate even during the pandemic, likely to decrease Adoption of IT services during 2020-21 which can be compared to the growth in has played an important role in maintaining the last few years. But the growth of digital lockdown, most of the vendors supporting the business operations of the bank. Due transactions has surpassed all projections the bank have moved to WFH model. to the pandemic, many customers have done by the bank which has resulted in The physical presence of the vendor was avoided coming to bank branches. Increasing requirement of additional infrastructure to limited to the physical maintenance of the adoption of digital banking has introduced cater to the increased transaction load. equipment deployed by the bank. a cashless economy in the country. The The increased digital transactions have adoption of IT will further help by reducing led to a growth in cases of cyber fraud too. Have you changed your IT service partners or footfall in bank branches. This may help the This has been countered by deploying state mostly continued with the existing partners? bank team to focus on increasing cross-selling of the art security solutions in the bank Indian Bank has mostly continued with and upselling by using data analytics thus network and by educating the customers on existing partners only and no service partner increasing interest and non-interest income the need to follow best safe practices while was discontinued on account of the pandemic. of the bank. Additionally, the on-boarding carrying out online transactions. of customer by using video KYC and online Has the number of outsourced people for account opening will help the bank to expand In what ways has the response from IT IT services gone up or down during the the customer base. Customers can open the companies changed? pandemic? account instantly from the comforts of their The response from various companies/ The number of outsourced persons has home without any hassle. vendors associated with the bank has changed more or less remained the same as at the pre- Automation and centralization of the to a great extent. Availability of onsite engineers pandemic era and only the work locations loan application and approval process will for day-to-day management and maintenance of most of the personnel were changed - benefit the customers. This facility will also of IT systems has become very scarce during from physical presence to virtual presence increase the customer base. The online IT the pandemic and most of the support is being through remote means. service adoption will result in increased extended by virtual means. customer satisfaction by providing seamless Even though our officials were attending What new IT services were outsourced digital journey. to their duties from office during the during the pandemic? [email protected]

18 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Tech Infra 25% surge in internet & mobile banking users AU Small Finance Bank is seeing a steady uptake in chatbot and WhatsApp banking:

s a retail-focused bank constantly AGILE, SECURED, EXPERIENCED innovating to make banking simple This pandemic has helped hasten the Afor its customers, AU Small Finance overall digital adoption by about 2-3 years, Bank is now moving towards being a if not more, says Tripathi, explaining: “We digitally led bank with pan India presence. believe, going forward, 3 factors will be key Today, the bank stands tall as a scheduled – agility, security and experience. Many commercial bank and a Fortune India 500 products and services are being built with company that is enabling a convenient a digital first approach. With the evolution banking experience with many industry- of video banking, we envisage that there first initiatives. As on 31 December 2020, would be less or no need for face-to-face the bank, which had started its operations interactions, other than those involving in April 2017, has established 728 banking cash and cheque transactions. With touchpoints serving 1.88 million customers regulator expanding the scope of video in 15 states and 2 union territories with a banking-based acquisitions, this is surely talent base of 18,992 employees. going to help in increasing adoption.”

FAST DIGITAL ADOPTION Ankur Tripathi INVESTMENTS IN CLOUD The pandemic has unequivocally fast-tracked Similarly, says he, digital payment the digital adoption among customers – be it from remote locations and delivering the transactions like UPI, credit cards, etc, for new product acquisitions or transactions. best-in-class digital solutions. As a matter of would enable customers to seamlessly Ankur Tripathi, Chief Information Officer fact, we have been with our existing partners transact from any digital platforms. Other at AU Small Finance Bank, says the bank as they understand our culture, processes important aspects, where investments has been experiencing a huge surge in the and expectations,” says Tripathi. would grow manifold, include the cloud adoption of internet banking and mobile adoption and ensuring a resilient and banking applications, where the number TO ADD 100 IT STAFF secured technology ecosystem – be it for of registered users has grown by 25% The bank understands that technology is customers to transact from any banking qoq. Among other digital channels, there no longer a support function; it has become platform or employees to use any of the has been a steady uptake in chatbot and the core of banking operations. Tripathi internal applications from remote locations. WhatsApp banking. “Thus, there is going to says the outsourced manpower has gone be a continuous focus on digital channels for up marginally and the bank has added a 90% SA PAPERLESS individuals as well as businesses,” he says. significant number of employees with wide The bank, since inception, has invested in high- variety of skillsets and experience to its end technology solutions to ensure a seamless LOCATION BARRIER GOES in-house technology team. “We may add onboarding and an optimum transactional The bank could ensure that in a short another 100-plus resource in the coming experience for its customers. More than 90% period of time, its employees could adapt year to achieve our vision of becoming a of its savings accounts are opened through to remote working, stabilizing the process technology-driven bank,” he adds. a paperless mode, using India Stack. It has and mode of engagement. Says Tripathi: recently launched video banking through “Even though there were some hiccups in IT OPERATIONS MANAGED which it is onboarding customers for savings the initial phase, today, everyone is much AU Small Finance Bank did not outsource accounts and fixed deposits. It has also opened more aligned to the concept and practice anything specific during the pandemic. more than 2000 such accounts till date. of remote working. This has potentially However, much brainstorming went into removed the location barrier for engaging carefully selecting the activities that need PLATFORM WITH 100 FEATURES partners or onboarding employees.” to be outsourced and those (activities) to be During the last quarter, the bank rolled out kept in-house from the day zero. “In both a major upgrade of its internet banking PARTNERS CONTINUE scenarios, tabletop exercises and drills on and mobile banking platforms as part of By design or default, the bank has been the business continuity plan (BCP) were an ongoing process and Tripathi claims focussing on creating a solid tech infra carried out frequently. These turned out to that in doing so, the bank is equipping its from day one. “We have been working with be very fruitful experiences in managing IT platforms with well over 100 features in partners, who have similar ecosystem, operations with all possible BCP invocation, both banking and lifestyle transactions. experience and expertise in enabling working without any impact,” says Tripathi. [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 19 MSME Financing 150,000 new borrowing applications per month FlexiLoans, a technology dominant lending platform catering to the needs of MSMEs. Abhishek Kothari, Co-Founder & Chief, Product and Data Science at the company, recounts the company’s thrust areas:

Mehul Dani: What are the market firms like Omidyar suggests that the differentiators of your company? How informal credit received by MSMEs is 6-10 have you undertaken tech-led customer times more than the formal credit. Thus, growth, business growth? as the economic growth rises, this gap is Abhishek Kothari: We have an continuing to expand to over $500 billion in unparalleled digital reach with over 150,000 a few years and needs efficient addressing. new borrowing applications per month. We have disbursed loans in over 1400 cities What is the funding pattern? How well are and towns and continue to be a leading you capitalized? digital brand across web and app, with zero We have raised a total of `5 billion in branches. Our network of partner ecosystems equity and debt funding so far. Recently, like Flipkart, Amazon, Paypal, PineLabs, we raised `1.5 billion in an equity and debt Mswipe, etc facilitate a seamless delivery of funding round led by the Sanjay and Falguni credit to millions of small merchants selling Nayar Family Office. We had raised one of on our such 50+ partner platforms. Asia’s largest seed funding rounds of `1 Our underwriting process is powered by billion in 2016 from veteran bankers like advanced machine learning algorithms and Sanjay Nayar, Anil Jaggia, Vikram Sud, etc. alternate digital data of businesses. And this entire sophisticated model is delivered Abhishek Kothari predicts that What are your targets for the current FY as through a proprietary technology stack. co-lending has the potential well as the future roadmap? Thus, despite the first half of FY20-21 to be at 50-60% of FlexiLoans’ We are geared in terms of resources and almost having washed away due to covid growing book technology to scale up 250- 300% in the uncertainties, we ended the year with our next 12-18 months and have an exciting mix highest monthly disbursement run rate, term loans. This partnership enables cross- of new products and partnerships to steer loan book and collection efficiency. We had border trade to foster growth. It provides that progress. a 73% business growth in Q4 FY 21 versus borrowers with access to collateral-free Our aim is to digitize the small Q3 of FY 21. We get more than 10,000 term loans from `50,000 up to `10 million businesses such that they can unlock the applications per month, largely from tier seamlessly in an end-to-end online process massive advantages of digitized entities 3 and tier 4 centers in India, and disburse with fast approvals. when it comes to price discovery, loan around `500 million every month. Our sophisticated data science and adequacy and borrowing costs. We aim We have seen 200% growth in technology platform processes over 300,000 to transform small business lending by disbursals and 10 times growths in customer customer applications monthly using making it convenient for SMEs to access acquisition. We also have 45% repeat proprietary credit score cards and early credit easily. We use technology and lending from the existing customer base. warning systems and decisions are made analytics tools, analyzing thousands of data Nearly 30% of our loans are to borrowers within 24 hours for a loan. We use proprietary points from various data sources to assess without credit score and 25% e-commerce technology and risk models that use advanced the creditworthiness of small businesses loans to female business owners. analytics and surrogate methods for scoring rapidly and accurately. Despite business loans segment customers, removing the friction points in By 2024, FlexiLoans plans to be a having a varied set of documentation operations, data gathering, credit decisioning multi-product lending platform with more and processes, 75%+ of our customer and fraud detection. than `50 billion of AUM and is preparing interactions are done by the system. We for getting a banking license. use a wide mix of computer vision tech, What is the current market size of the [email protected] IVRs, bots, social media assistance and MSME financing market in India? workflow automations to manage 1 million As per available market research, documents and calls / per month with a India has over $300-400 billion worth very small CRM team. of unserved and unmet credit demand Recently, PayPal partnered with us to by financial institutions. Research by offer MSMEs and freelancers’ collateral-free organizations like World Bank and VC

20 Banking Frontiers May 2021 The founding team of FlexiLoans:(L to R) Manish Lunia, Abhishek Kothari, Ritesh Jain, and Deepak Jain Commodity Trading NCDEX platforms apply surveillance alerts at PAN level NCDEX and NCCL use a host of software for monitoring market activity:

s India’s leading online Exchange, build safeguards for the betterment of the NCDEX brings buyers and sellers market as a whole and individual investor as Atogether through its electronic well. Avinash cites specifics: “For example, trading platform and offers benchmark the new margin framework is an outcome products across agriculture commodities. of various discussions with the regulator as Some of NCDEX’s key investors include well as the trading members, with a view to National Stock Exchange of India, build adequate safeguards from heightened Life Insurance Corporation of India, market volatility.” National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development, Indian Farmers Fertilizer CHECKS ON PAN NUMBER Cooperative, Oman India Joint Investment One key characteristic of agricultural Fund, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, derivatives is that it is produced once a Build India Capital Advisors and Investcorp year and the consumption occurs across the Private Equity Fund I. NCDEX also has year. Thus, the availability is limited and a subsidiary, the National Commodity depleting as the year progresses. “Taking Clearing Limited (NCCL). this into consideration, our exchange determines position limits for each REAL TIME MONITORING constituent, based on the availability of the NCDEX has a real time monitoring system Avinash Mohan reveals that commodity in the ecosystem. Client level - the Millennium Surveillance System ‘Position Limits’ are monitored at a PAN (MSS), which is a feature product of NCDEX is now in the process level. Further, the trading system has self- London Stock Exchange group. Avinash of adopting cloud technology trade prevention check which is applicable Mohan, EVP & Head, Surveillance & at PAN level across all it segments,” Investigation at NCDEX, explains its that the portfolio value does not exceed the elaborates Avinash. features: “The MSS is an advanced market available collateral of the clearing member.” surveillance platform, equipped to manage SURVEILLANCE ALERTS ever growing message traffic, adapt to new SOFTWARE: AML ALERTS Policies and measures are developed trading technologies and supports cross- NCDEX and NCCL also use a host of at a macro level for the entire market. market and cross-product monitoring. The software for monitoring market activity. The Exchange then sends alerts to the surveillance systems handle functionalities, Says Avinash: “These are providing members to facilitate better compliance. which include live trade and order data, alerts to members, capturing anti-money Avinash explains: “For example, in case graphical display and tracking of trades and laundering (AML) related alerts and many of position limits, the Exchange sends orders, new pattern recognized alerts, user more. Additionally, the exchange also alerts to members when the position of friendly front-end dashboards/ reports, uses state-of-the-art third-party as well as the member or any of its associated clients alert manager and market replay.” in-house developed software to facilitate is approaching the position limit for a other activities and better monitor markets. said commodity. Likewise, if the portfolio RISK MANAGEMENT SYSTEM value of a member is close to the available NCCL has a risk management system LEAN PERIOD MARGINS collateral with the Clearing Corporation, the (RMS), with a set of primary functions. Event-based additional margin was member is sent alerts. These alerts facilitate Avinash shares its utilities: “This is with introduced in 2019-20. Avinash points better compliance on the member’s side. To regard to managing the margins based on the out that in the past one year, NCDEX facilitate effective surveillance at member’s parameters set by the Clearing Corporation along with the regulator, has undertaken a level, we are also providing surveillance and factor in the volatility prevailing in the holistic review of margin framework, which alerts to our trading members.” market; and to maintain the positions of included prescribing minimum initial NCDEX keeps on revisiting the members and clients. This is also to provide margins, based on the historical volatility of processes and the technology landscape. alerts to members, whenever the positions the commodity and introduced lean period Avinash says it takes necessary steps of the members and respective clients are margins. to enhance customer experience and approaching position limits, notified for consolidate/split applications. It has also the specific commodity. The RMS also SAFEGUARDING VOLATILITY embarked on the journey of embracing provides for mark to market the portfolio of Exchanges work in close coordination with cloud technology. the respective clearing members and ensure each other and the regulator to constantly [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 21 Entrepreneurship Women start-ups rising and expanding Biggest skill gap is perceived in the areas of using technology and digital mediums for marketing and brand building:

mitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, India’s largest online entrepreneurship has said that women-owned platform Startup India, under the Abusinesses and enterprises are Ministry of Commerce and Industry, playing a very prominent role in society. “I allows startups to network, access free firmly believe that the next big disruption tools as well as resources and participate within the Indian startup ecosystem will in programs and challenges. be driven by women entrepreneurs with Currently, the number of women the digital platform being the biggest entrepreneurs maybe less, but overall enabler,” he had elaborated. women occupy about 30% of corporate Addressing participants at an event senior management positions, which is - ‘Game Changers - Women Startup notably higher than the global average Awards 2021’ organised by FICCI FLO, (24%). The overall median proportion of he said the share of women entrepreneurs female executives in successful companies in the Indian startup ecosystem is rising is 7.1%, compared to 3.1% at unsuccessful and expanding. Stating that women companies. are the backbone of any economy, Stand-up India facilitates bank loans he complimented the organizers of in the ` 1-10 million range to SC, ST and the award and said it is a unique and women entrepreneurs. Trade Related innovative platform also providing a Entrepreneurship Assistance and financial impetus to economic growth Jahnabi Phookan feels that Development (TREAD) provides women and leading to the creation of jobs. He women entrepreneurs need with trade related training, information released the ‘Whitepaper on Women to be enabled to realize their and counselling and grant of up to 30% Entrepreneurship in India’ brought out rights of the total project cost. by FLO Mumbai along with SP Jain The half-million, working-age Institute of Management & Research. Finance, was recognized for her path- women in India are its biggest untapped Addressing the award winners, breaking work within the fintech industry. economic resource – a neglected segment Sopnendu Mohanty, Chief Fintech Among the award winners were of India’s paid labor force. Officer, Monetary Authority of Singapore, Lizzie Chapman, CEO & Co-Founder of Maloo Natrajan, Chairperson, FLO said one of the critical segments which ZestMoney, who got the ‘Startup of the Mumbai, says women entrepreneurs of would make a substantial impact on Decade Award’; Akanksha Chaturvedi, today are exploring unknown territories a fintech’s profitability is the women’s Founder of Eduauraa Technologies and are proceeding with great enthusiasm market in financial services. “Today, ‘Youngest Startup of the year Award’ and to change the world around them and it represents the world’s largest and Kanika Kishore Dewani, CEO, Mintree make a difference with their ideas. fastest growing market. Focusing on the Cosmetics, the first ‘FLO Game Changer According to a report on women women’s market is not charity, it is an Award 2021’. entrepreneurship in India in 2019 by opportunity that can be worth billions Bain & Company, accelerating quantity and could go up to trillion dollars of WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS and quality of entrepreneurship can revenue,” he added. 13.76% create over 30 million women-owned The ‘Game Changers’ is a pan India Women constitute only 13.76% of the enterprises, of which 40% can be more competition for women-led startups that total number of entrepreneurs in India, than just self-employment. This, in turn, offer women entrepreneurs a chance to that is, 8.05 million out of the 58.5 million can generate around 150–170 million get their dream project funded through an entrepreneurs, according to ‘Startup jobs, which is more than 25% of the exclusive group of reputed VCs by pitching India’. These establishments owned by new jobs required for the entire working and making a conclusive case to them. females provide employment to 13.45 age population, from 2020 until 2030. Smriti Tomar, Founder & CEO of Stack million people. Maloo mentions that some of the key

22 Banking Frontiers May 2021 areas to focus policy making are making desire for being independent. workplaces more inclusive for women Self-motivation, it said, emerged in senior and leadership positions, as the strongest influence for a better access to finance, networking women entrepreneur to pursuing an opportunities and safe working entrepreneurial career followed by environments. She said FICCI-FLO- support from the spouse. As the majority Mumbai has tied up with IIM Bangalore, of the respondents are married, influence Rise (Barclays Accelerator), IIT Mumbai of spouse appears to be of crucial and other organizations to promote significance in the making of a woman entrepreneurship among women. entrepreneur. According to the latest Global Gender The inability to find good mentors Gap Report presented at the World could be one of the reasons for the low Economic Forum 2020, India ranks scores, rather than their low influence. 149th amongst 153 countries, with a In-laws were ranked at the lowest, along gender gap of about 65% on economic with the siblings. This may indicate the opportunity and participation. It has lower involvement of the in-laws in the been estimated that if India maintains careers of women. A couple of cases its progress toward gender parity at did mention the push from the father- the same pace as a fastest- improving Amitabh Kant predicts that in-law as a determining factor for their economy, it could add $700 billion to its the next disruption in the start- entrepreneurial journey. However, the GDP by 2025. survey showed that the mother-in-law ups will be driven by women was rated higher than the father-in-law. BIGGEST SKILL GAP in women’s entrepreneurs This could be explained by the fact that startup the cooperation from the mother-in- Among the other findings of the FLO government schemes, they do not have law was needed to manage the house in report prepared on the basis of in-depth adequate awareness or easy access to her absence, before the daughter-in-law interviews with 20 women entrepreneurs financial support. could pursue her business career. and a survey of 105 respondents, are: u Biggest skill gap is perceived in the The report also mentioned that the u Women entrepreneurs seem to be areas of using technology and digital encouragement from the family is a driven more by a higher purpose mediums for marketing and brand key factor for the success of a women’s and having an impact on society building. entrepreneurial efforts. The financial rather than short term goal of family The report has made the following support (from the family or others) income. recommendations is the second factor. The home and u Simultaneously they derive self- u Family and social interventions to family responsibilities were the leading worth by behaving and acting with a address prevailing negative gender challenge for the entrepreneurial careers. competitive approach to business and bias for doing business and pursuing The next challenge faced by the women a desire to prove themselves as leaders. entrepreneurial careers. entrepreneurs was inadequate knowledge u Such hybrid social identity is likely to u Government policies to boost and skills. cause inner turmoil when they make participation of women in It said the continued gender decisions and choose their course of entrepreneurial activities that promote stereotyping continues to be a challenge, actions in entrepreneurship. responsible management and create with women speaking of their difficulties u Relationship with stakeholders thus social impact. in getting simple procedures approved emerged as the biggest challenge for u Financial ecosystem to facilitate or being judged as being less competent, doing business. convenient access to financial support. on the basis of they being female. In fact, u While encouragement from family is u Make available, targeted knowledge one respondent spoke of the degree of the strongest factor for entrepreneurial repositories. Skill development in use comfort that their vendors had, when she success, family responsibilities is also of technology and digital mediums. took on the role of handling the finances, the biggest deterrent to pursuing an especially when she preferred to avoid entrepreneurial career. MOTIVATORS, INFLUENCERS debt and make her company debt-free u Women entrepreneurs continue to The report said the desire for having and being prompt in payments. face a negative bias, making it difficult one’s own business for achieving a The report also said the women to access relevant networks and higher purpose than one’s self, is a strong entrepreneurs had stated that they domain knowledge. motivator for women to consider an needed training in digital marketing as u While interested in applying for entrepreneurial career, followed by the their highest need. This was followed by

Banking Frontiers May 2021 23 Entrepreneurship

FLO, said: “The Indian startup scenario is a buzzword in today’s world and they are beginning to contribute to the growth of our Indian economy. Women entrepreneurs can thrive economic growth in the start-up scenario but for that they need to be enabled to realize their rights, she added. [email protected]

Sri Lankan Banking Marching to the Future

Sopnendu Mohanty estimates Maloo Natrajan points out that women’s market in that women entrepreneurs of financial services could be today are chartering unknown trillion dollars of revenue territories fearlessly

understanding how to use technology. is the founder, the size of the businesses Surprisingly, their needs in operations, became larger, with the largest size being Dr W.A. Wijewardena supply chain and managing human for businesses founded by the fathers- Former Governor, Central Bank of Sri Lanka resources were ranked lowest. in-law. This could be explained by the Summary: Technology The findings showed that women fact that the larger sized businesses are has helped the Sri entrepreneurs were usually having micro- probably family businesses, whereas the Lankan banking sized businesses, (usually with a turnover smaller sized businesses are startups, fraternity to transform of less than `20 million), in cases where founded by them, away from the family because of its resilience they had been the founders of their businesses. and constant innovations. businesses. In cases where the spouse Jahnabi Phookan, President, FICCI

24 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Lending Platform Alternative approaches help cut costs The co-origination platform has reimagined lending with its phygital model, which uses technology and authentic in-person service:

mall Business FinCredit India, or ANALYTICAL INTELLIGENCE SBFC Finance, is the first NBFC SBFC Finance has deployed a data Sin India to set up a bank-NBFC warehouse to generate back-end co-origination platform in January 2019 analytical intelligence. It uses integrated with ICICI Bank. straight through processes to deliver an SBFC Finance’s products and services easy experience to the customer. What are delivered through a phygital model. is unique is the backend intelligence it It uses smart technology to enhance has have built in its ‘Direct to Customer’ efficiency and makes the customer (D2C) approach. “We crunch hundreds journey easier. It has established tech-led of data points to arrive at segmental profitable growth in the past 3 years. understanding of these small businesses SBFC Finance’s Co-founder and and identify potential good credit in areas, CBO is Mahesh Dayani, who is a key where we have a branch. The machine person of the senior team overseeing the identifies, the human executes. The car is firm’s business growth through product simple to drive, what’s below the bonnet expansion, brand development and drives that simplicity,” explains Dayani. strategic partnerships. He has more than 26 years of experience. ONLINE GOLD PLATFORM Says Dayani, Finance’s standing today Mahesh Dayani explains Setting up the entire infrastructure to is testimony to our risk management that analytical rule engine enable work from home for employees to skills and ability to design and launch facilitating customer onboarding using products that meet diverse needs without helps the company in faster video KYC and digital uploads was crucial compromising on asset quality. Our credit decisioning, resulting in and Dayani says the company is taking a approach is to reimagine lending with the quicker TAT fresh look at costs and exploring whether phygital model, which uses technology there is another way of growing business and authentic in-person service.” decisioning. Our analytical rule engine without proportionate rise in fixed costs. Dayani says the company’s direct helps us in faster credit decisioning, “For example, we launched ‘Gold Genie’, connect and local presence through a resulting in the quicker turnaround time which is an online gold platform wherein hub-and-spoke model provides valuable to customers. With our mobile customer our employee visits the customer’s home, insights into the minds of its customers, application, we are handing the power values his jewelry, creates his accounts strengthening its understanding of of self-service to our customers. LeviOSa and disburses money in his account in less underserved markets. This distinct is integrated at the back end with India than 30 minutes. If this initiative scales approach is helping customers move from Stack, enabling our officers to give instant up, we will not need to put up thousands an informal segment of business to a more sanctions. No files, no paperwork.” of branches. We will achieve the same formalized ecosystem, says he. productivity yardstick with a fraction of TECH-LED CRM cost,” he says. LOS APP The company also operates on an assisted SBFC Finance optimizes business digital model. Its loan officers have the IN-HOUSE PROCESS processes and customer service using app through which they digitize the The whole process behind a loan has advanced data analysis. It has taken the application process at the office/residence been created in-house – origination, entire process from application to disbursal of the customer. underwriting and collections, Says Dayani, to a digital mode through its website. Its customer app has a variety of elaborating: “That’s our DNA. It does take “This is done by using our in-house Loan features empowering a customer to do a a lot of effort to build the initial platform Origination System (LOS) app called number of activities. “The customer can and takes a while before you see the green LeviOSa (meaning light). It is both a view loan history, make payments, get shoots of disbursements and productivity. mobile and a web application, with strong product details and various offers, locate We’ve come a long way in building our microservices-based workflow engine and a branch, calculate EMI, refer a friend, monthly disbursals from less than `500 integrated with many interfaces online make a service request and request for million to `1.50 billion.” for faster processing and effective credit interest certificate,” says Dayani. [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 25 Cover Story

IT firms & their Re-Invention Mantra

BFSI companies have always indicated that they your failures/difficulties to attract talent to join your received great support from IT companies, especially in organization. times of crisis, so that they could keep their operations (iii) The most important lesson you have learnt from normal, their customers happy and satisfied. Banking your successes in attracting new customers. Frontiers queried CEOs of select BFSI-focussed IT (iv) The most important lesson you have learnt companies and fintechs to understand how they are from your failures / difficulties in attracting new re-inventing themselves from employee and customer customers perspectives so that their innovative models stay (v) Briefly describe how you have applied these relevant. We posed 5 questions to them: lessons and made quantitative and qualitative (i) The most important lesson you have learnt from improvements in operations, strategies, your successes in attracting talent to join your communications, training, etc. organization. And their responses are collated to sum up their (ii) The most important lesson you have learnt from strategies into this 5-part cover story:

26 Banking Frontiers May 2021 New Vistas for Engaging Talent The ways of acquiring talent and making productive use of the talent have changed as a result of the pandemic. CEOs of tech and fintech companies reveal their revised strategies:

t is simple to say that when organizations hire the right talent and treat them Iwell, they will work efficiently and stay longer. But there are nuances in attracting the right talent at the right time. How can organizations gain a magnetic touch when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent and how do chief executives contribute to framing the right policies and practices in this regard? Anand Awasthi, CEO, Avhan Technologies, believes that giving them an early and quick peak into new and disruptive paradigms acts as a motivating factor for the right people to remain Srikumar and his team with the organization. He says: “For automation, guidelines and self-service approach the employees who had left us example, our innovative (and patented) tools. We also introduced flexible work in the last 3-5 years through a campaign ‘Jodo World’ framework and the digital policies for new hires as well as existing by their peer group: and open up referrals cloud ‘Communication-enabled Business employees. Our hiring accelerated for and the data base not just for the current Process’ Management (CEBP) technology the large opportunities and we have been positions but for the upcoming ones in usually work to engage job seekers’ able to cater to demands of our customers the next 6 to 9 months,” he says. interest and it helps us in attracting the even during the pandemic.” He says under the current right-sort of passionate talent we want.” Ashwin Chawwla, CEO, Escrow circumstances, social media posts, micro Pay India, is of the confirmed view that sites and postings through college/campus STRUCTURE AND PROCESS a person joins a company or business networks also helped the company to Anuj Gupta, CEO, Hitachi Systems because of the leadership more than attract talent during the pandemic. Micro Clinic, insists that the success of anything else. Chirag Patel, CEO, Acute Informatics, any organization is directly dependent the right way of getting the right talent on its people. And as an organization, he 3-PRONGED APPROACH is to focus on results. He argues that says Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic has According to Balaji Vishwanathan, CEO, with the pandemic, the WFH is the best implemented a structure and process Expleo, while employee referrals have suitable approach for both employees to optimize workforce performance, been an established source to attract and employers. Collaborating on-line and engagement and productivity. “We talent, his company realized that doing it finishing the tasks within the deadline knew we had to take some fundamental the traditional way of giving a standard matters, no matter where the employee steps to transform our hiring process to 10k-20K is not attractive enough as the works from, he says. attract talent considering the limitations compensation is going up. “We came up imposed by the pandemic. Therefore, we with a 3-pronged approach, the employee CORE MISSION CRUCIAL simplified our hiring process, established referral scheme and cost to be attractive Ganesh Jivani, CEO, Matrix Telecom, workflows and enabled consistency with even though it’s cheaper than channels; points out that the talent market is Ashwin Chawwla with his team at Escrow Pay turbulent due to major disruptions all across - economy, businesses, organizations and people. But, stop- gap solutions neither last long nor bring expected outcome. Instead of being swayed by the prevailing turbulence and losing focus, he would prefer to be continuously reminded himself about sticking to the company’s core mission

Banking Frontiers May 2021 27 Cover Story

and strategies based on long-term deep understanding of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. For Gayatri Balaji, CEO, Nanobi, past performance is undoubtedly a factor while attracting talent, but she says it is very important to assess cultural fit into the organization as well. “The right frame of mind, appreciation of the organization’s Govind Rammurthy with his team at eScan work ethic and passion to contribute are Srikumar Kumar, CEO, Alpharithm (challenging work, autonomy, etc) is more considerations that are sometimes more Technologies, maintains that most important than compensation offered. important than just past performance,” senior roles are fulfilled only when the “Though compensation does play a major she insists. management is able to sell the company’s role, other factors like work, vision of the Govind Ramamurthy, CEO, eScan, vision to them. “They don’t agree to work company, values and culture also go a long points out that not every talent that for us just based on compensation. They way in not just attracting talent but also joins the organization lives up to its need to see the company’s growth and retaining and engaging it,” he says. potential. It is very disappointing to where they fit in that growth strategy. They “I don’t see it only as attracting talent to see talented people lose their way due are also seeking flexibility to work from my organization, but I see it as attracting to various reasons, he says, and adds: home even after the pandemic is over, as my organization to the talent also,” “Hence, we ensure that anyone who they have tasted comfort in working from asserts Vinod Govindan, CEO, Oceans.ai. joins our organization is given the most home and spending time with the family. He elaborates: “See, people have dreams conducive environment to grow in. We We are offering these things to attract and aspirations, and organizations have as an organization feel great joy when an potential employees,” he says. dreams and ideas. A good entrepreneur employee realizes their true potential and or a leader is one who can align the two achieves their dreams.” WFH A KEY FACTOR in her or his organization. I have always Although brands attract talent to join Vijender Yadav, CEO, Accops, narrates strived to align these two to attract the an organization, Pramod Sharda, CEO, the instance of the company engaging best to join the journey.” Icewarp, states that one needs to have new talent amid the lockdown and travel It is imperative that enterprises must proper processes and it is the experience restrictions and allowing people to work not just recruit the right talent, but aim that counts as an overall perspective to from anywhere they want, be it a big to improve their candidates’ experience attract and retain talent. metro or a tier-3 city or a village. “We with engaging outreach, an effective found people to be more motivated and interviewing process and informative EMPLOYEES KEEN ON VISION at their productive best when allowed to onboarding. It is also key to examine Rohit Mathur, CEO, Exponentia argues work from their native villages or towns, how fast or slow a candidate moves from that it is extremely important to show the sitting next to their families. Now, we one stage of the recruiting funnel to the organization’s vision to the candidates pick the bright minds from anywhere, next. And the aim should be to rectify and have them buy into that vision. “The get them onboarded quickly and provide the problematic stage and not show her candidate decision should not be solely them the flexibility to work from wherever or him the exit. For, the talent has been based on increment, career progression they are,” he reveals the strategy. identified after a due process and always or possibilities of working on hot Another key learning for him is that the right talent is hard to come by. technologies but they should want to while recruiting exceptional talent, the [email protected] contribute to the vision as well,” he says. ability to engage the talent’s potential [email protected] The Pull of Brand & Value Proposition New factors have emerged to ensure the right talent is engaged and it is retained:

he common struggle for any CEOs find this task an onerous one. It is in order to achieve operational excellence, enterprise is to get the right talent imperative that a talented, properly trained drive innovation and gain customer Tand often HR executives and even and motivated workforce should be there confidence. 28 Banking Frontiers May 2021 As the competition for talent rages on, often HR managers and sometimes even CEOs tend to take decisions that may prove wrong in the long run. In today’s environment they have to - and they have started to - think outside of the box. Today it is question of building talent and not just acquiring it. And acquiring talent that fits the culture of the organization,

PACKAGE NOT A CONSIDERATION Balaji Vishwanathan and his team at Expleo Gayatri Balaji of Nanobi reminds one that Awasthi of Avhan Technologies. He says everybody is looking for changes in these money or pay package is never the reason that most people tend to want predictable, unprecedented times,” he avers. somebody either joins an organization or leaves comfortable\cushy jobs, even though they one. It is simply an excuse to rationalize the initially say that they are attracted by the WORK-LIFE BALANCE decision, she says, adding: “If the organization ‘new’ technology and want to work on it as Govind Ramamurthy of eScan believes that is unable to create a learning, challenging well as develop themselves. with time the mindset of candidates has environment for its people, neither can it “Accepting, and then bypassing, the changed a lot. Earlier, he says, candidates attract good people or retain them.” practicalities and difficulties of ‘using as well who we had deemed to be talented Anuj Gupta of Hitachi Systems Micro as bending’ their previous understanding\ would happily join an organization by Clinic points out that transitioning a human knowledge or one may call it ‘unlearning’, understanding what kind of an opportunity centric function to a completely technology is the real skill that we watch and search they are being presented with. “However, dependent and highly responsive function for,” he asserts. this generation is a lot different. They was significantly demanding during covid. Ashwin Chawwla of Escrow Play has compare the perks that come with the However, he says in the case of his company, this to say: “Well, if you have hunch for the opportunity and seek work-life balance its exceptional brand values paved the way right candidate, move mountains to have which seems to be of high priority in this for building a structured approach to ensure him onboarded. Look beyond terms.” age,” says he. an inclusive and flexible organizational Balaji Vishwanathan OF Expleo “We are going through a tectonic culture to onboard new talent. “We faced specifically speaks about covid times and says shift in the organizations’ assumptions the unavailability of right talent with the the increase in demand, while it was expected and mindset about the need for people to right skills at customer location. Therefore, in Q4 2020, the surge and quantum was a work from designated workplaces (offices) we started on-the-job trainings for the surprise for reasons that were difficult to and requiring people to relocate,” opines employees to fulfil the immediate needs of comprehend. However, he says, the fight for Ganesh Jivani of Matrix Telecom. our customers,” he says. talent was real and the difficult lesson that He points out to the sudden and wide his organization learnt is that to stick by the acceptance of remote working and WFH, STARS CAN DEMORALIZE principles is very hard when one sees the costs which he says, has opened new avenues for The advice of Vinod Govindan of Oceans nearly doubling, ethics and scrupulousness people living in cities and this is increasing is never focus on star performers. “My were hard to see with no-shows on the date competition in attracting talent. “This lesson is while stars are good in the short of joining or not showing up within the first is equivalent to a remote eCommerce run, in the long run they can demoralize 10 days of joining etc. company competing with retail outlets in the organization. Most talents are not star “It was a challenge to keep the selected Vadodara or Varanasi or Visakhapatnam,” material; they are just hard-working people candidates warm, more than offer an says he. who have dreams. I have always failed when attraction. The offer to join ratio was going Rohit Mathur of Exponentia I focused on a few stars to help me achieve down from the traditional 85-90% to highlights the fact that different goals. It demoralizes the larger parts of the ~60%. It is candidate-driven market today candidates have different aspirations organization and brings down the gains and they make the choices at any stage, as and some get kicked by opportunity to made by the stars. Organizations that focus we saw quite a few who had resigned from work on hot tech while some want to on stars will struggle to get good fresh talent their previous jobs seeing the demand and build something big while there could be easily, because a star-based atmosphere is were confident of drawing a good joining some who would want to manage a large more often than not, a toxic one,” says he. bonus, etc as well,” says he. team and so on. “It’s important to align It is necessary to identify early whether Identifying the right employee for the aspirations to the role,” he stresses. the talent has the resilience and true positions, negotiating on notice periods interest in working on the ‘new normal’, and meeting salary expectations are core BRAND IS A FACTOR apart from good coding skills. feels Anand according to Chirag Patel of Acute. “Not Pramod Sharda of Icewarp recalls the

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at times being sceptical about applying, joining, etc, he says.

SOCIAL MEDIA, ONLINE PRESENCE Secondly, he says, in today’s world, social media and internet presence is a key medium to gather information. “Prospective employees often consider online reviews of the company as an important parameter while applying for jobs. Therefore, companies must invest in Ganesh Jivani and his team at Matrix having a strong online presence such that it time his company just launched its as opposed to a large multinational. They makes it easier for organizations like ours to operations in India and was not known as want to see if we are able to pay them attract good talent,” he suggests. a brand. “So, when you come to be known salaries on time every month. So, we As attracting the necessary talent is and has created that brand presence and are working on changing our marketing directly linked to an enterprise’s success, seeing the difference, the best of talents messages on social media platforms to the imperative for all forward-looking would want to join you to enhance their ensure the brand value and commitment organizations is to identify areas of careers,” says he. towards employees stand out,” he says. improvement in the workplace, enhancing Alpharithm’s Srikumar Kumar Vijender Yadav of Accops strongly the value proposition and ensuring that reads the minds of the job aspirants: believes that brand plays an essential part in the new hires settle down and grow in their “Most junior roles are fulfilled based on decision-making by prospective candidates. career. This is the mantra for getting in and meeting with the salary expectations and Startups usually face this major challenge retaining the right talent. brand value. They generally compare the while competing with bigger known names [email protected] benefits of joining an SME organization in attracting talent, leading to quality talent [email protected] Pandemic drives Customer Engagement Transformation The way a customer gets interested, then buys the product and sticks to it is not an easy way:

arketing gurus advise that intuitive user experience. service, they look no further and they are financial technology companies However, strategies give way to happy to be allied with the company. “In Mhave to have a strategy to market practicality often. For example, Gayatri our case some have even renewed their themselves differently to overcome some Balaji of Nanobi maintains that it is contracts and our association has lasted of the initial biases against them. Today, always back to the basics when it comes for more than a decade. Working hard to it is seen that fintechs are adopting a new to attracting customers. “You need to have achieve this quality is important because kind of marketing, something like business- a story that they like, they need to have that is the key to gaining and retaining to-human like we say B2C or B2B. This is a real and tangible reason to justify the customers.” more so when the company concerned is partnership and you need to come in at The second key factor, according to him, a business or customer facing company as the right price point. Once the initial sale is innovation. “Cybersecurity,” he says, “is customers seek more human interactions. is made, continuous value add is a must an evolving field, where every day is laden Market strategists suggest fintechs to adopt and no relationship should be taken for with challenges. And success of a solution is education, trust and customer experience as granted,” she asserts. solely dependent on the pace of innovation the foundations for a successful marketing an organization can deliver.” expedition. Experience would mean QUALITY IS SUPREME removing the jargon from the interactions, Govind Ramamurthy of eScan finds that REVISE ROADMAPS trust is to have the customers on your side customers in any age and era have always Anand Awasthi of Avhan Technologies through education and customer experience preferred quality. Once they see the quality has worked out a 2-pronged approach to is all about offering a personalised and of the solution and a reliable after sales the company’s product development and

30 Banking Frontiers May 2021 attracting new clients – enterprises as well as SMEs. He explains: “Developing and managing a tech product that is truly friendly, reliable as well as economical, is what we continuously keep working on. For enterprise customers, there is no single way of offering solutions – they have multiple internal applications, processes and multiple methodologies for IT infra, security management and regulatory compliances. Some clients have worked and prepared the groundwork for digital while others have just started working and are on a back foot for transformation. We try and understand their current roadmap, Vijender Yadav with his team at Accops infrastructure and objectives. We offer clients want to see the picture of success when you listen to customers and settle solutions from our Jodo Framework to and the road to success. “The faster they their problems. Don’t sell your products suit their current goals and create a path visualize, the quicker is their decision or services to them. Listening and for them to achieve transformation. We let making,” he says. contextually responding is the greatest clients choose their adoption paths in the Srikumar Kumar of Alpharithm says sales skill,” he argues. fastest and least disruptive manner.” the lesson that he had learnt is to focus So, helping the customers review and on the business value and benefit that SIMPLE, INTEGRATED, revise their ‘road maps’ and do ‘change the client will gain from the product or COST-EFFICIENT management’, are core of what the company service. “Especially during times like the Vijender Yadav of Accops says the important has learnt to focus on while trying to show pandemic, clients have a reduced budget to thing that he learnt from customer its new technology to enterprise customers. spend, so they need to see value and ROI feedback and eventually achieved is to keep Awasthi says the struggle with change in the short term. They are also looking the solutions simple, integrated and cost- management is not easy - either due to the at agility and flexibility from the service efficient, helping organizations reach ROI client’s previous ROIs which they have not provider,” says he. fast with utmost flexibility and freedom. yet met fully, and\or, internal agility issues. “Typical solutions used by organizations He also says it is a challenge always RIGHT STRATEGY to create a digital workspace or enable work to know that the technology on offer will Anuj Gupta of Hitachi Systems Micro from home include multiple point products help the client, whichever size they may Clinic believes that a right strategy ensures from different vendors - for example VPN currently be at. “This will save him a ton a successful outcome for the business. “For from one vendor, VDI from another and of money, add speed and agility in the example, our agility became an armour strong authentication from a third. These business, which his investors as well as for our customers as we supported them solutions take more time to deploy and customers will love for big-time, and help with seamless services at the time of the create problems in resolving support issues him see-and-feel,” he says. pandemic. Our extensive managed services while shooting up the overall TCO,” he says. “So,” he says, “we work with our portfolio combined with expertise in cyber Yadav says learning from experiences, clients. If they allow it, that is, and this is security, cloud and data center solutions the company has created an end-to- another ‘lesson learnt’ area when we see a helped our customers to adapt to a digital end integrated work-from-anywhere client prospect who has a ‘vendor-centric’ ready organization. Additionally, we offered solution with out-of-the-box multi-factor approach, and internally we call it a ‘non- extended credit during pandemic to ensure authentication, enterprise-wide SSO and participative\non-listener’ approach, we uninterrupted technology implementation data leakage prevention features, among refrain from actively pursuing him, as for customers,” he says. many others. change management is slower and more “In today’s times, clients are time “Today, we are able to offer our customers difficult, if not impossible, with him.” obsessed and want everything in minutes. the freedom they deserve to choose They are also willing to pay more, if remote access technologies, deployment BRAND IS OF VALUE timelines can match,” says Ashwin Chawwla platforms or licensing models as per their Pramod Sharda of Icewarp reiterates that of Escrow Play requirements and build a scalable and customers are always happy to be associated The most important lesson Vinod secure IT infrastructure. We have been with a brand that delivers and is approachable Govindan of Oceans says he learnt is that proactive in adding new features, such as to be able to cater to their needs. customers do not want to be sold to. “Long biometric and facial authentication, device For Rohit Mathur of Exponentia, lasting engagements with customers last entry control, contextual access control, etc,

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to our existing product lines, anticipating the evolving needs of organizations with respect to data security and privacy concerns and regulatory requirements. A customer-centric approach has helped us build feature-rich products, which, in turn, have helped us grow our customer base,” he adds.

RESOURCE AUGMENTATION Anand Awasthi and his team at Avhan Technologies Balaji Vishwanathan of Expleo finds that the demand for digital talent as every and customer centric. “Your team has to meetings. Significant part of marketing and organization was looking to accelerate the believe in this. The pandemic taught us sales can happen through digital media and digital journey. The demand surge during to be resilient and reach out to potential managed by people from anywhere. Q3 of 2020 also saw the sales cycles going customers on a regular basis through calls, Studies have established that customer down significantly, he says, but one of the key web meetings etc. acquisition is costly - acquiring a new changes, according to him, is the increase It’s not necessary to insist on one-on-one customer can be 5 to 25 times more in opportunities in resource augmentation meetings with potential customers, if your expensive than retaining an existing one rather than project based or outcome based, solutions and services are positioned rightly. (without considering opportunities for given the paucity of time to evaluate. Customers are willing to embrace the same, cross and upsell). And the advice is that Chirag Patel of Acute insists that even during the pandemic,” says he. fintechs should consider other easier paths situations like pandemic will only make you Ganesh Jivani of Matrix Telecom says to growth like increased usage, uptake, and stronger and inspire you to innovate and the pandemic accelerated the shift from earnings among existing clients. invest with a tenacious approach, making traditional sales to digital sales. Now, he says, [email protected] your solutions and services more innovative customers do not insist on physical visits and [email protected] Tough lessons in customer acquisition Acquiring customers most of the times can be a laborious task:

t is often mentioned that fintech startups mismatch impacts short-term profitability, are in a ‘lose-lose’ situation when it he says, stating further: “The other element Icomes to getting new customers. Their was to sign up with new clients and new competitors are an established lot, they projects remotely, which was a new but an have captive customer base and they have interesting lesson on what to look for in an the wherewithal to get new ones. Their opportunity and also in solutions design.” only drawback is that they have inefficient Anuj Gupta of Hitachi Systems Micro infrastructure. Clinic cites the company’s incapability For any enterprise, new or old, customer to provide on premises solution acquisition is a costly proposition, in the implementation especially because of the range of $1500 to $2000 for financial restrictions on movement imposed by services institutions, according to experts. authorities during the pandemic as one of Obviously startups want to conserve their the difficulties in securing new customers. funds and the pattern of their budgeting is “With business uncertainty, we decided to to decrease marketing budget every year. have a more cautious approach towards Strategies to acquire customers, undertaking new projects. Our objective was therefore, gain criticality for any startup. to stay stable and we undertook thorough Pramod Sharda scrutiny for new opportunities,” he states. PEOPLE VERSUS PROJECT Balaji Vishwanathan of Expleo states that solution with a project-based approach. DELAY ROI the challenge was to build a people-based Also, the demand for talent and cost of talent Chirag Patel of Acute argues that at

32 Banking Frontiers May 2021 the customer appreciates it.” Ganesh Jivani of Matrix Telecom narrates how his company and probably similar organizations find it difficult to adapt to move to digital marketing, digital sales and remote sales. “Old habits die hard and traditional business models, processes and team structures take time to adapt to the new realities,” he says. Rohit Mathur of Exponentia, however, says the crux of the matter is how to align interests of different stakeholders involved in decision making in client organizations for faster and efficient decision making. Srikumar Kumar of Alpharithm states that in this new normal where most clients are working from home, one has to look at new ways of engaging with Balaji Vishwanathan Anuj Gupta clients. “We need to understand their times, startups need to make cost- working patterns during the day and be attract new customers is to not be able to effective propositions and delay their sensitive to the fact that they are sharing solve the real problem of the customer. ROIs. “Not everyone is looking to invest rooms/workspaces with their kids in “When we have tried to sell a product, it has in new mandates during the pandemic. virtual classrooms and spouses working always failed. The customer always needs a For example, capex proposals needed to from home. The traditional face to face solution and your product is always just a be positioned/staggered in opex model. and event-based sales and marketing means to get to the solution, perhaps not Insisting on the capex model resulted in us channels have to be replaced with new addressing the specific problem,” says he. getting outcompeted,” he explains. digital channels. They need to see that Anand Awasthi Avhan Technologies we can successfully deliver a project BRAND VISIBILITY IS KEY has a simple advice: “Don’t give them (the completely remotely,” he reiterates. Vijender Yadav of Accops says his company marketing outfits) just a big picture, give is a completely Made-In-India product them small steps to attain / achieve the FIRST IMPRESSION THE BEST company, competing with some big global big picture. Spell out each step to them in “I have seen that customers especially in companies in different domains. Despite simple manner.” this age are very quick to judge a product having the trust of 600+ global customers, Ashwin Chawwla of Escrow Play points they use and they often form a negative he has often faced difficulties in getting a out to the fact that hiring regulations sentiment towards a brand if they are level playing field with big international abroad are more complicated and stringent unhappy the way the product turns out to companies. “While our products speak for as compared to India. One needs to be be,” says Govind Ramamurthy of eScan. themselves, as a growing company, lack of adequately funded, before stepping up “Some have even chosen to voice their brand awareness has been a concern for us. hiring internationally, says he. displeasure online which in turn can hurt the Wiser from some recent setbacks, we are now credibility of the brand. In such a scenario, putting in serious efforts to increase our brand WHEN TO CALL OFF it is absolutely crucial to understand that visibility and brand awareness. Because we Gayatri Balaji of Nanobi says often one first impression is the last impression for a want to offer the choice of technologies and finds that customers are dragging the customer. And one must always be prepared diversity of vendors that organizations had decision timeframe and what starts off for a crisis situation,” he says. been craving for all these years with respect with a potential to close in weeks, goes on He is also of the view that with the ever- to work from home,” he explains further. for months and one finds oneself unable changing landscape of cybersecurity, every He also cites lack of understanding to disengage. “The most important thing CIO/CTO/CSO is challenged to keep pace among business leaders and key therefore is to have the ability to make with new technologies. “Failure happens if stakeholders about security challenges and that judgment call to not pursue the we are unable to reach across and explain the risks involved in the work-from-anywhere opportunity,” says she. innovations to a CIO/CTO/CSO,” he adds. scenario presents hurdles for investments For Pramod Sharda of Icewarp, it required to smoothly run and securely is simple logic: “You can’t make every SOLUTION IS IMPORTANT scale businesses. “We are using multiple customer happy, but if you are open and For Vinod Govindan of Oceans, the most channels to communicate the need for a transparent and most importantly available, important lesson learnt from failures to compliant and flexible IT infrastructure to

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help organizations create a hybrid, future- prospective customers about the problems the most important aspect is to ensure that ready digital workspace,” he says. the product on offer would solve. the product is meeting compliance norms, Well known marketing experts advise Secondly, they should have a clear idea especially when the prospective customers that enterprises facing challenging situations of the target customer - the product may be are highly regulated entities. in marketing their products should give ideal for smaller-sized firms and it is waste [email protected] emphasis in the first place to acquaint the of time and effort to target larger firms. And [email protected]

Holistic Approach to Success In this environment of uncertainties and hardships, what sustains a business is the focus it has to maintain committedly:

ow do enterprises become successful? In simple words, by Hcreating products and services around the prospective customers’ needs by using the right tools. In doing so, one must understand policies, requirements and the users’ expectations, besides acquiring the knowhow to build the product or create the service. Successful entrepreneurs list the steps that are required to be taken for the business to flourish as focus on customer service, having an effective marketing effort, having good online presence, bringing down business costs, finding and keeping right employees, updating business plan periodically and always staying balanced. Govind Ramamurthy Srikumar Kumar CHANGES IN 5 AREAS Anand Awasthi of Avhan precedence to talent. Says he: “While Balaji Vishwanathan of Expleo maintains Technologies says the company has in the years that have gone by, we have that the changes both in medium and moved to ‘work from anywhere’, become always heard candidates for what they long term have been primarily in 5 areas: far more process driven and all its have to offer with the kind of talent that (i) Operating model – hybrid model of processes have been progressively aligned they possess and then presented them permanent vs partners, how to work to achieve real-time process delivery. with opportunities that will hone their with competitors as partners; “After having spent months to achieve skills and enable them to achieve their (ii) Resourcing model – dedicated vs the shift, we have realized the challenges dreams. But in the current era, we first demand based, external help on that our customers must be facing (their understand what the priority of a talented niche skills, engage with consultants teams don’t even know the extent of ‘new’ candidate is and then support him with a on a near-gig model; possibilities that we know. Also, we share balanced work-life environment that aids (iii) Up-skill and re-skill methodologies, our experiences with any organization/ not only his professional but personal including cloud based hands-on chamber/institution for promoting growth as well.” experiential learning; entrepreneurship in any way. Then, we Similarly, when planning to sign (iv) Evaluating, understanding and use social media and participate in tech a potential customer, the company solutioning techniques in the current startup gatherings and discussion groups showcases what work it has done and all remote working scenario; and in fairly open discussions,” he says. the accolades that it has received for it. “At (v) Focus on constant engagement, the same time, we also do tell them that we communication with the team(s), TALENT IS SUPREME are not infallible and we have learnt from clients and partner(s) without fail. Govind Ramamurthy of eScan gives our mistakes and grown as an organization.

34 Banking Frontiers May 2021 partner sales networks. “We use all major digital and social media platforms to engage with customers organically. We roll out EDMs, newsletters, press releases, etc, regularly to keep existing and potential customers updated on new products and solutions. With Thought Leadership marketing, we try to make customers aware of new trends, innovations, and best practices. We also sponsor virtual events and technology conferences to reach out to the relevant audience,” he adds. Gayatri Balaji of Nanobi lists what the company has followed in various functional domains: (i) Keep new recruits on a trial period Ganesh Jivani Rohit Mathur where both them and us can learn This ensures that we are honest with about each other and walk away metrics for effective measurement of our success and failures, creating a during that period if we find the employee productivity. For motivating bond with them while establishing clear fitment is incorrect. our employees, we mapped the learning communications,” he adds. (ii) Tightly manage the sales pipeline and development plan after identifying He adds that the company works with and qualify leads/prospects carefully the gaps in the skillsets. As a Japanese a wide-range of institutions across the using 3 attributes a) a real, immediate company, we strongly believe in Kaizen, country to develop partners, encourage and compelling need b) a budget to which has been implemented through entrepreneurs and train CIOs, CTOs support that need c) access to and the simplified business engagement model and CSOs. Working with the likes of CII, concurrence of key decision makers. and shared services in all departments.” Assocham, CDMA, etc, and also with 3) Keep customers engaged and the likes of entrepreneurship cells of constantly innovate for them - new SELECTING TALENT DIFFICULT top-ranking colleges in India, it tries to ideas, new solutions, new processes. Vinod Govindan of Oceans stresses that deliver experience and value to budding 4) Allow the team to work on multiple selecting and retaining talent is always innovators. different projects and find the sweet a complex process. Identifying the right spot that they want to build expertise in. skills but yet having candidates who STAFF COOPERATION 5) Be the best in what we do - wrap the can adapt to new skills is one of the key Vijender Yadav of Accops says with technology with domain expertise and challenges in hiring the right skill. its years of expertise and knowledge customer relationship management “One of the means to get candidates in the field of end-user computing skills/programs. attracted to us is to let them know the virtualization and ZTNA-based remote challenges they will be addressing and access, the company has built itself into COUNTERING COVID IMPACT have them engage in some trial examples a progressive one where everyone works Anuj Gupta of Hitachi Systems Micro of the problems they will be involved in in sync and works as an essential cog in Clinic specifically about steps initiated solving. They can then give their ideas running the wheels of the organization. to overcome the impact of the pandemic. and thoughts on how they will address He says Accops is a 100% channel- “We have taken measures to mitigate them. With this hands-on approach to focused company, with channel partners the impacts of the pandemic and other hiring, we give them a feel of what they playing a critical role in GTM strategies. risks. We have created a governance will experience and we get a feel of how It has over 150 resellers in India, Japan mechanism to evaluate the new business they will perform in the environment,” and Middle east. Other partners exist in opportunities with a cross-functional he says. South America, Central Europe. In the risk exposure taking suggestions from And in the company rewards are US, it has signed up with an OEM partner HR, finance and business teams. To always based on the following factors: as well as few resellers to start building ensure that we take informed business a. achieving goals sales there. It is also collaborating with decisions, we have started engaging with b. achieving them as a team or singularly several others to strengthen its sales credit rating agencies for evaluating c. achieving them in stipulated time, and capabilities and provide enterprises with liquidity position for extended credit on d. examining how the most visible person multiple options and take benefit of new projects. We have established new shares the rewards with contributors

Banking Frontiers May 2021 35 Cover Story

during pandemic and bringing in a professional trainer who can help them overcome these challenges. u Creating Close Departmental Groups, allowing more interaction among the members of the group, which often stimulates further discussion and uncovers unanticipated issues and insights arising due to pandemic. The company, says Patel, also took some proactive measures: “We ignored absenteeism due to covid, meaning there is no pay cut, assigned a dedicated HR/ Admin executive for employees’ healthcare claims, including costs associated with emergency covid room use, increase in compensation for staff, did online surveys to understand what Gayatri Balaji Vijender Yadav is expected from HR teams and how Vinod Govindan also adds: “For WFH can be implemented with security SALES TEAM FACES DIFFICULTIES attracting customers, our focus is not and access of office systems quickly, Srikumar Kumar of Alpharithm stresses on sales but solutioning. The teams are encouraging existing customers to attend that as an IT services provider, the encouraged to solve customers’ problem. on-line web meetings to discuss their company’s people and process were This is easier said than done because support issues and to explain to them already aligned to the remote method of sometimes that could lead to your own the importance of cyber security during working and delivering value to clients. solution (as it stands today) not fitting a pandemic and encouraging potential However, the sales and marketing the customers’ needs, but in the long customers to attend on-line web meetings approach had to be improvised to run that’s better. The trust you build to discuss the impact of pandemic on demonstrate value to prospects over will enable you to make the sales down their IT budgets and positioning our virtual meetings and workshops. While the line. And it keeps the entire supply solutions accordingly with realistic 70% of the delivery team was working chain honest without undue pressure of implementation timelines.” remotely, 30% of them had to be based on meeting unreasonable commitments and Ganesh Jivani of Matrix Telecom says client locations. “Appropriate measures deadlines and/ or putting excessive risk the company has been questioning its were taken and the 30% workforce were on the business operations.” assumptions and reassessing its strategies, guided to adapt to the policies and tools of structures, processes and skills to find more the clients to avoid disruption in delivery AN OPEN MIND effective solutions to grow its business. “Of timelines. Virtual meeting platforms Ashwin Chawwla of Escrow Play says course, there is large difference between have been made as the default tools for the company is open in its approaches, understanding something and executing discussing company strategy, cashflow, embraces diversity in employees and it,” he concedes, and states: “Therefore, operational issues, etc. creates a collaborative workplace where this is work in process.” While these may be lessons learnt and talented people can flourish and grow. Pramod Sharda of Icewarp has few measures initiated to counter particular “We’re taking the Stripe approach of words: “You can’t make every customer issues at a given point of time, there picking best talent from the absolutely happy, but if you are open and transparent are proven smart ways for any leader best payment and banking companies,” and most importantly available, the to ensure that the staff is motivated to he says. customer appreciates it.” get through tough times. Management The major qualitative improvements Rohit Mathur of Exponentia says experts list these briefly as: 1. transparent that Acute made, according to Chirag the company has applied our learnings communication about a particular Patel, are: by having a dedicated customer success situation, 2. identifying the lessons to u Adapting to customer’s expectations team, which defines success differently be learnt, 3. sharing one’s vision for the swiftly and making strategic business for different stakeholders and ensures future, 4. acknowledging even smallest of decisions keeping in mind the effect that all stakeholders see the success the achievements and 5. seeking honest of the pandemic on their IT budgets/ in their own way. The team also aligns feedback. spending. internal teams to client stakeholders’ [email protected] u Observing employees’ challenges view of success. [email protected]

36 Banking Frontiers May 2021 BC Model CRM onboards customers, Kiosks serve them The National Business Correspondent has 185,000 Facebook followers and 88,000 Instagram followers

ll India Society for Electronics 2020-21 for Atal Pension Yojana was and Computer Technology 77,485, for Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti A(AISECT) is India’s leading Bima Yojana it was 2,27,417, and for social enterprise functioning in the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana financial inclusion space since 2009 580,897. The average commission earned with the objective of providing financial by a customer service point (CSP) is and banking services to the semi-urban `10,000-12,000 per month. and rural population of the country. Since inception in 2009, total 10 It operates 4382 kiosks in rural, semi million accounts have been opened, urban and urban areas, out of which having a balance of over `20 billion. 870 were opened during the FY2020- During the FY2020-21, 400,000 bank 21. Siddharth Chaturvedi, Executive accounts have been opened. The average Vice President, AISECT Group, provides balance per account is `2000. Other insights into the tech-led growth in the than that, we have over `350 billion last FY under tough times: transaction amount since the inception of FI initiatives, out of which `100 billion is Mehul Dani: What are the underlying during FY2020-21. technologies that you use in your organization? Siddharth Chaturvedi strongly Please discuss in detail technologies Siddharth Chaturvedi: We use believes that the recovery from that you have deployed for improving the Banking Correspondent network to the huge impact of covid can onboarding and their business impact. offer financial services such as enabling The technology deployed for digital transactions and cash withdrawals only be through digital improving onboarding has been in semi-urban and rural parts of India. CRM, which has facilitated our lead We also shifted our marketing campaign Can you give details of banks and management. Using CRM, we receive online with most of the budget going into insurance companies with which AISECT proper information on our leads, their online advertising such as Google Ads has tie-ups for customer acquisition? status and an analysis of the lead, who did and SEOs. AISECT is currently working with not come on board, etc. CRM has further More than 80% of our customers are 5 banks - State Bank of India, Bank of helped us make the requisite changes in mobile users, mostly Android phones. Baroda, Bank of India, Madhyanchal our campaigns as well. We have opened We enable our BCs with technology Gramin Bank and Punjab Gramin Bank. 8.5 million bank accounts and done platforms so that they can interact with For life insurance, we have tie-ups with transactions worth over `150 billion. customers through calls or emails, which LIC, SBI Life and Kotak Life; for general are completely automated, and calculate insurance with New India Assurance, In the prevailing covid scenario, what their commissions, which are paid off United India Insurance and ICICI are your targets and plans for IT, digital later. Over `2.01 billion in commission Lombard General Insurance; for health initiatives for tech led growth? has been earned by the kiosk operators insurance we have tie-ups with Care We are aware that the pandemic is since inception, out of which `450 Health Insurance and for agriculture here to stay for a long time and AISECTs million we earned during the 2020-21. insurance with the Agriculture Insurance target is highly aimed towards spreading Company. its wings online and transforming How is your digital strategy implemented Our customers are being served with digitally in order to fuel growth. We will in the last FY? the help of CRM, which lets a person use new technologies to improve business AISECT’s digital strategy primarily store customer and prospect contact operations. We are also changing the involves completely pivoting towards information. CRM has helped our organization’s business model in order IT. We are also looking at cloud-based organization gain an insight into the to introduce new products which will solutions in order to facilitate capability, behavior of the customers and modify cater to the revised market. We estimate scalability, functionality and reduced our business operations to ensure that that approximately 90% of our revenues maintenance. Besides that, we are looking the customers are served well. will be online in the years to come. The at increasing the efficiency of each The enrolment of customers under recovery needs to be digital! employee using the digital platforms. social security schemes during the FY [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 37 Micro Finance Stepping up from 3As to 3Es Joby CO, CEO of Dvara KGFS, discusses the MFI’s activities and its technological journey:

Babu Nair: What is the genesis of collected from 4160 households combined Dvara KGFS? with an additional 14,263 households for Joby CO: The genesis lies in the fact which the data on savings, income and that the financial inclusion efforts were not poverty were available. reaching remote rural areas/hilly areas/ As per the study, the villagers’ economic coastal areas and growing concerns around activities are conditioned by their financial over-indebtedness because of the sole focus environment. KGFS-operated village on micro-loans. Small MFIs were not getting households (treatment villages) are 6% enough debt funds for growth as their more likely to have a household member balance sheets were very weak. Regulators working outside agriculture, have 10% needed more research-based insights about reduction in informal borrowing levels, the nature of the financial inclusion market, have 21% higher business sales, 7% higher so that policies could be aligned to the total weekly wages, and 10% reduction realities of low-income households. There in poverty levels. Secondly, women living was an urgent need for more business model in the treatment villages experienced innovations and for more holistic financial significantly lower long-term stressful inclusion approaches. Joby CO conditions than women in control villages. Our parent, Dvara Trust (formerly Our business model has also shown IFMR Trust) was set up in 2007 with a an impeccable track record of profitability mission to ensure that every individual and proposition is same as the uniqueness of the and efficient risk management in the face of enterprise has complete access to financial KGFS model. This model revolves around: sectoral events such as demonetization and services. Dr Nachiket Mor was the founding a. Remote Rural – Operating in highly natural disasters. Chairman and Bindu Ananth (formerly remote geographies of the country. head of Development Strategy Group, b. High Tech & High Touch - last mile What technologies have assisted you in ICICI Bank) was the founding President. branches complemented by a variety of giving wings to your vision? Dvara KGFS (formerly Pudhuaaru digital tools & proprietary technology KGFS Assist is an inhouse solution Financial Services / IFMR Rural Channel & platform. developed for the branch channel that Services) is the retail arm of Dvara Trust, set c. Wealth Management approach - offers the customer relationship and loan up to pilot the innovative Deep Dense KGFS charting out a customized customer origination suite. This includes digital field model in the remotest geographies in India. journey using a Financial Well Being automation and a desktop solution for the Currently the model is being successfully Report (FWR). The report extensively branch teams and operational hierarchy. implemented in coastal Odisha, hills of covers the financial trajectory of the Key features of this application include Uttarakhand and plains of Thanjavur, customer and her household and also (i) customer enrolment (ii) multi-product Tamil Nadu. her future financial goals. The FWR is loan origination workflows integrated then used for product recommendation with credit score, eSign etc. (iii) wealth How have you been uplifting the lives of to the customer. management package (iv) unified customer rural Indian and making a difference? d. Beyond Credit - one of the few Indian payments solution for loan repayments Dvara KGFS has worked extensively NBFCs with a successful track record and wealth management investments in remote rural areas, offering a range of of executing a multi-product approach using multiple instruments such as cash, financial products to its customers. Today, it with a wide range of products spread Aadhaar Pay, UPI, net banking and Bharat is present in 9000+ villages in 48 districts in 6 across our Plan Grow Protect Diversify, Bill Payment System (BBPS) Biller Solution states through 308 branches with more than or PGPD approach, explained earlier. (v) cash withdrawal, balance enquiry 1.17 million customers. Our AUM as of March e. Localization- one of the very few services using Aadhaar Enabled Payment 2021 stands at `11 billon with over `45 billion Indian NBFCs that hires from the local System (AEPS) (vi) utility bill payment in loans disbursed, since inception. community, with a significant number such as mobile recharge, water, electricity of women front line staff. etc using Bharat Bill Pay System (BBPS) What is the uniqueness of your business This unique KGFS model has created (vii) fintech integrations such as cattle loan proposition? significant impact on ground as shown in underwriting, crop loan underwriting, Gold The uniqueness of our business an independent study which used data SIP integration, mutual fund integration,

38 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Unique Model of Dvara KGFS etc. (viii) daily planner for wealth managers PLAN GROW using AI & location analytics (ix) realtime A diagnostic process which helps the A process designed to help performance monitoring and automated household to recollect and plan for all households Realize their total income incentive calculation, and (x) personalized Its current and planned expenditures potential and Take appropriate action dashboards for wealth managers. against current and planned income. to increase their Income / surplus KGFS Mitra is a customer engagement app for digital touch points which enables PROTECT DIVERSIFY our digital agents to: (i) generate leads Protects human capital, income- Helps allocate funds across (ii) accept loan repayments, payments earning assets and provides a safety diversified assets & assists the for insurance and other products, net to avoid compromises on goals household in spreading the risk and (iii) undertake balance enquiry, cash and aspirations optimizing returns withdrawal & mini statement services via AEPS for the rural households, (iv) facilitate payment of utility bills, mobile recharge and monitoring various compliances etc. The potential in the Indian rural etc via BBPS for the rural households, (v) All these tools help the functions to improve markets is hugely untapped and with our accept payments (MerchantPay) using their processes and controls and aid them next 5-year plan, with the impact that we BharatQR, AadhaarPay etc & vendor in improving their efficiencies. will create with innovations in supply chain payment via UPI (vi) business tools for / value chain financing/ FPO funding/ crop recording and consolidating income and What are the ecosystems you have / diary funding using tech assisted model to expenses; simple tracking of outstanding created? What is unique about them? track crop / animals etc., we want to reach payables and receivables; inventory, CRM, Currently, Dvara KGFS has a strong out to these markets and segments and POS integration etc. (vii) facilitate money network of uniformly branded 308 solve their financial problems in the most transfers, ticket booking etc. for the rural branches, served by 1200 plus wealth innovative manner as possible. households. mangers in uniform spread across 48 For those market segments where there WhatsApp Chatbot & MyKGFS districts in 6 states. Going forward, we is enough visibility and market penetration app offer self-service capabilities for intend to augment this physical channel that the main issues of ‘Accessibility, smartphone savvy customers such as (i) with couple of other channels through our Affordability & Availability’ are taken care automated reminders on repayments (ii) omni channel strategy. This will help us to of through multiple interventions from the instant access to FWR, loan balance, loan provide financial services to our customers government and private institutions, we schedule, DSSP balance, etc. (iii) provide anytime, anywhere, in the most customer- want to start looking beyond these 3 A’s referrals and make new product request. centric and convenient ways possible. This and work towards 3Es - ‘Enrich, Enable Inside Sales CRM App is a lead will also enable customers to initiate a & Empower’ - enriching the customer by management solution for multiple products transaction on any channel and complete doing a proper due diligence and trying to across multiple channels, with (i) call it on any other channel. provide him/her a suitable product which center integration for inbound & outbound Digital agents and digital touch points suits them, rather than one size fits all and voice communication (ii) Customer 360 for are appointed in areas where opening come up with a digital platform, which is monitoring interactions across all touch branches would not be financially viable. intuitive and the customers would not feel points (iii) monitoring tools for operations These touch points are equipped with scared to use; enabling them with multiple managers. KGFS Mitra, enabling them to offer communication and delivery modules; and At the back end, each customer at the various products and services to the finally empowering them to take a guided time of onboarding is scored based on the rural households. Digital Self Service & decision, which would enable them to past track record, debt service capability WhatsApp Chatbot helps view their existing create wealth and also take care of them and other risk parameters. This is then product details and avail a host of services and their families. updated based on the customer’s repayment easily on WhatsApp anytime. Also, we as an organization are behaviour with us thereby building a KGFS Direct is our relationship exploring strategic opportunities to expand digital track record for each customer. management cell for customer grievance our geographic reach through business We also have multiple applications built redressal and inside sales. It helps in acquisitions and widen the product scope to improve the internal processes and resolving the customer queries and providing through transforming into suitable legal controls for each function. Some of the key quick resolution to their problems. It will structure including that of a small finance applications are FinEzy for finance and also allow KGFS to cross sell or upsell other bank as this would help us to widen our accounts for vendor management, branch products and services to the customers. product scope and give access to our rural rent management, treasury management customers to a complete array of wealth etc., Audit Tool for digitization of internal What is your vision for better well-being management products suiting their needs. audit function, compliance tool for tracking in rural India? [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 39 FCBA

FCBA 2020 FRONTIERS IN COOPERATIVE BANKING AWARDS Rising to Nnew rmal

Banking Frontiers organized its annual FCBA relating to business, technology and coping with the conference-cum-awards on January 22-23, 2021. The pandemic crisis. This time the entire conference was theme of the conference was ‘Rising to New Normal.’ held online. We present here excerpts of the panel The conference covered a wide range of topics discussions: Cooperative banks bracing for the new normal Bankers have been our silent warriors. They have led the country out of economic crisis brought upon by the covid situation. Cooperative banks have always been customer-centric. Banking did not stop during the pandemic and it goes on to show that cooperative banks are robust enough to face challenges:

ukund Abhyankar, former revolution. Banks have been adopting how is one of the oldest banks bracing for chairman of Cosmos Bank, Satish technologies, but without training the the change? MUtekar, former CEO of TJSB staff, all the advances in technology will Indrasinh Mahida: The oldest Bank & and consultant for cooperative not work. Banks have to provide customers traditional bank had to change ways due banks, Rajesh Mirjankar, CEO of Infrasoft the ease of banking, which is possible to the pandemic. There have been a huge Technologies, Indrasinh Mahida, CEO, with the digital revolution. Technology 250% increase in mobile transactions. Surat DCC Bank, Anurag Srivastava, CEO will help profitability and productivity. ATM vans and mobile banks have been of UP Federation of Urban Cooperative Cooperative banks should focus on the launched to reach out to people in the most Banks, Atul Khirwadkar, CEO and development of HR and utilize this time rural areas. Innovative schemes have been General Manager, Kalyan Janata Sahakari for advancements. launched to give loans to farmers. With the Bank were the panelists at the discussion, help of training, the staff has been taught moderated by Babu Nair, Publisher, Babu Nair: What is your opinion about digital ways of banking. Banking Frontiers. small finance banks and the technology We reached out to people through used? digital platforms. Previously it was used as Babu Nair: What are the new possibilities Atul Khirwadkar: We have become one of the tools but post-pandemic it has that the cooperative banks are looking for? stronger as a result of the situation. One been the most effective tool. Taking into Mukund Abhyankar: In my opinion, finding is that it is possible to work with confidence the key staff of the branch, we the technology provided by the tech giants a lesser workforce. We had conducted an reached out to the customers personally. is costly. Though it is being regularly impact analysis and evaluated various updated to suit the needs of the customers contours. With the newer regulations Babu Nair: What are the newer and fulfill banking needs, smaller banks by RBI, cooperative banks will have to technological demands of the industry? may not have the funds to invest in such rethink their model. The exposure to risks Rajesh Mirjankar: Cooperative technology. At Cosmos Cooperative Bank, is getting higher due to technology. Huge banks have been pioneers and proactive in we have developed our own technology investments have to be made to make sure adopting newer technologies. The amount and also helped a couple of other banks to the banks’ online transactions are secure of business done is very significant and implement it. As a result, the business has and safe. While this is not productive, it is cooperative banks are not going anywhere. been running smoothly despite lockdowns. an inevitable cost. Adaptability to digital platforms has Satish Utekar: It is because of the allowed them to survive the onslaught in pandemic that we are witnessing a digital Babu Nair: In your experienced opinion the market from commercial banks.

40 Banking Frontiers May 2021 POS, ATMs & micro-ATMs, simple digital payments have helped them keep afloat. Helping over 200 cooperative banks onboard cloud platforms, we have seen that changing to technology has helped them sail through adversity. Emerging out of the pandemic the cooperative banks will have to be socially distanced but digitally closer to the customer. Cooperative banks can work closely with the cooperative sector to emerge out of the crisis.

Babu Nair: Do you see a loss of trust for the To keep hackers at bay, advanced firewalls cooperative bank to small finance bank is cooperative banks from customers in the have to be installed. Many technologies can not on the cards for all. The core competency wake of scams? be adopted for safe transactions. of the bank decides whether to move or not. Anurag Srivastava: It is true that any bad news brings negativity to the Babu Nair: What are the innovative Babu Nair: How is AI shaping the banking sector. There has been a little mistrust technologies making their niche in the industry? but it is mostly perceptional. It has not market? Rajesh Mirjankar: Data-driven harmed business. Now the customers are Satish Utekar: The greatest learning approach will help banks in decision demanding more from the digital platforms from the pandemic has been to be customer- making. With lending at its core, banks and it is the responsibility of the banks to centric. Upgrading and leveraging technology will have to come up with lending solutions provide it to them. are as important as training staff. The shift with AI. Checks and balances have to be has been from giving loans to selling them placed before lending. This will help the Babu Nair: What are the technological as a product. New avenues of business and bank give loans again and again to the changes and advances that cooperative collaboration are opening up. This has same customer. Loan Origination Systems banks are adopting to bring back customer been possible due to technology. Keeping and social profiling of the customer are confidence? the customer as the pivot point and using the 2 areas where technology can be used Mukund Abhyankar: There is a lot to technology to leverage growth is possible. extensively. be done in the security and fraud sections. Atul Khirwadkar: Migration from [email protected]

Is phygital a tool to retain customer trust? Suddenly, customers have woken up to the digital banking space. Customers of cooperative banks like to stay in personal touch with banks. How to convince the customer that digital banking is safe and reliable? To keep getting their trust while trying new channels is a new challenge:

he panelists in the discussion are decade or so? come down, (iii) spending should end in Vinayak Chavan, Manager of Parsik Satish Utekar: For cooperative banks, good results and (iv) business should be TCooperative Bank, Sunil Garge, it has always been with a personal touch. profitable. IT Head, Hasti Cooperative Bank, Rohit The customers are always happy to transact Singh, CISO, Arihant Cooperative Bank, personally. Customers and investors Babu Nair: How to continue with customer Sachin Nadkarni of SVC Bank and Satish have also understood that investing in loyalty and be profitable in the digital Utekar, former CEO of TJSB Bank. The technology is good for the banks. During banking space? discussion was moderated by Babu Nair, the pandemic, banking has not stopped. Sachin Nadkarni: In a cooperative bank, Group Publisher, Banking Frontiers. Things to remember before getting new branches do more than just transactions. technology are: (i) customer satisfaction They are nodal points to build trust, build Babu Nair: In your view, how has customer and benefits should be kept in mind (ii) cost the bank’s brand and be the customers’ experience been changing in the past of transaction and cost of operation should advisor. Customers still look to banks for

Banking Frontiers May 2021 41 FCBA

the same, it’s just that the route has changed. Most of the cooperative banks are taking one step at a time. Keeping the customer’s comfort and safety in mind internet and mobile banking have been introduced. Automation of balance statements and 15G forms automatic renewal have been taken up subsequently. BOT, AI, and ML are being used to sanction loans.

Babu Nair: Digital vs physical? Or is it phygital, where both meet? What is the way ahead? providing. All the staff has been given enough Satish Utekar: What technology is Sachin Nadkarni: Due to digital, training to resolve customer grievances. The adopted for lending purposes? And how customers are closer to the bank than customers’ faith in us is immense, so our will the physical assets be treated? ever before. Using AI banks are aware of responsibility has also increased. Sachin Nadkarni: The brick-and- customers and this makes the customers mortar branches are going to stay for some happy. In my personal experience, I have Babu Nair: What innovations have helped time. There will be a section of customers found that customers want to continue the gain the trust of customers? who would like to come to the branch for relationship. The pandemic has allowed Vinayak Chavan: Cooperative banks transactions. banks to get closer to the customers. have been working on trust. In rural India, most people trust a bank for generations. Babu Nair: AI is immensely used for data Babu Nair: How are cooperative banks Shift to digital has become a necessity and capturing and for getting civil records, gearing up the staff and the customers for it is picking up. We at Parsik Bank want personal records, and other credentials the imminent and swift change? to keep internet or mobile banking in from various databases and verifying them. Sunil Garge: Digital literacy in rural its simplest forms, so that even the least Vinayak Chavan: Proactive areas is almost nil. It has taken generations digitally literate person can function. engagements for improved financial data to build the trust and confidence of the is the way forward. Analytics will help the customers. They are scared that by using Babu Nair: What are the technologies that banks to crunch the data and engage with digital mode their accounts will get hacked. It will make remarkable changes in customer the customers. Instead of sending SMS to is a herculean task to convince them about the experience? all the customers about schemes might not safety of their money. People have immense Sunil Gagre: UPI transactions have work in the future. It is important to find trust in Hasti Bank. That has become possible been picking up. It has increased by 4 times. target customers and segmentize. because of the services that we have been They know the customer. [email protected] Banks must be careful in choosing cyber insurance Cyber insurance is being recognized as an additional defense mechanism for most organizations.

Arjun Bhaskaran: How has cyber insurance Mathan Babu K: After RBI’s regulations more people are taking it seriously. We worked for your company since the time regarding cyber insurance for banks 6 years have been conducting seminars for the you adopted it many years ago? ago, most financial institutions have started cooperative banks along with insurance Sunder Krishnan: We have adopted adopting it. The outlook of companies companies and trying to bring awareness cyber insurance 6 years ago. Extensive research towards cyber insurance has changed a on this subject. There are many aspects has been conducted. All the stakeholders have lot. Smaller banks as well as cooperative to cyber insurance: Cyber Insurance, been made aware and quotes from brokers banks, after coming under the purview Cyber Crime Insurance and Banker’s have been reviewed before it was bought. of RBI, have started looking into it more Indemnity. Any company opting for it Information technology is one of the biggest intensely. We too have been claim-free in should thoroughly look into which areas investments for any company. So, it is logical all these years. have to be covered. Every word has to be to buy cyber insurance. We have had 0 claims Vinod Shah: As an advocate of cyber drafted out well. All the technical details in all these years. security and cyber insurance, I am glad have to be looked into with a hawk’s eye

42 Banking Frontiers May 2021 so that the company benefits. The next question that arises for banks is the limit of such insurance and what is the premium to be paid. It would mostly depend on the number of endpoints. And how well the bank has implemented cybersecurity measures.

Arjun Bhaskaran: With too many play of words, how to safeguard the interests of the bank? Jayshree Nangare: There are no set rules for cyber insurance. The Tribunal has given only the guideline that at least 2% of the not only structure the policy but also to moment as the level of cyber security is turnover should be insured. The judgment settle the claims. different for each bank. And the service also mentioned that 1% of turnover should be Jayshree Nangare: It is important to providers are not keen on giving the same. spent on strengthening the IT security of the look into the ‘technical’ words properly. Also, Sunder Krishnan: We should be able banks. The operational risks, infrastructure compliances and security measures have to to bargain for lower premiums and higher and various factors determine CI. be placed. It is important to review the SLAs coverage. The investigation expenses are high. Contradictory rules are present in periodically and document all the audits. So, companies should go for higher coverage. a cyber liability policy. The policy has Mathan Babu: It is very important to to be modified according to the bank’s Arjun Bhaskaran: What is the third-party have cyber checks and controls before buying operational requirements. If the bank uses coverage for the customer banks? cyber insurance. RBI’s new regulations help the services of vendors for IT purposes, Mathan Babu: We have matured the cooperative banks choose their standing they should protect themselves through the due to cases coming over the years. The for cyber operations. It is also possible to get third-party claims of outsourcing vendors. risk of exposure for us is higher as we are smaller insurance and get addons so that the If the policies are drafted correctly, it is the network providers. We have assessed cost of the policy is not too high. very easy to settle the claims. We can get the availability of covers for large-scale Jayshree Nangare: The cyber fraud insurance cover for not only internal failure exposure. The cost of cyber insurance insurance companies do not provide for but also outsourced vendors. is huge so we have to be very careful in social engineering attack coverage. New choosing the service provider. We do have frauds are happening every day. These Vinod Shah: How to deal with international a broker who helps us in securing the best frauds are not covered by the insurance hacking, as some insurance policies don’t policy that suits our operations. providers. The challenge ahead is to make cover this area? sure that the companies strengthen their Arjun Bhaskaran: It will be beneficial Arjun Bhaskaran: Do you take a group cover security measures. Legally it is difficult to for banks to use brokers to leverage the for member banks for efficient coverage? defend in a group policy. policy to cover cyber war also. It helps to Vinod Shah: It is not possible at this [email protected]

Meeting compliance norms are crucial uidelines have been issued from The discussion was led by Pramod Director, Veershaiv Cooperative Bank, time to time for banks to keep up Karnad, former Managing Director at Kolhapur. To voice opinions from an IT Gwith the changing times and bring Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank. Other perspective Head-Presales & Solutions, all banks on the same platform. A provision speakers who participated the discussion IDBI Bank, Maheshwar Pathak, joined in the amended Banking Regulation were Dilip Dighe, General Manager the discussions. Act brought in January 2020 concerns Maharashtra State Cooperative Bank, Supervisory Action Framework to monitor Pradeep Naik, CEO & Managing Director, Pramod Karnad: Post the BRA amendment, asset quality, profitability and capital/net Raigad DCC Bank, Vinod Dadlani, CEO do you think there is any great changes in worth of the banks. How are cooperative & GM, Kalupur Commercial Cooperative the compliance part for banks? banks gearing up to comply with the new Bank, Ahmedabad, Rajendra Bilare, GM, Vinod Dadlani: Since RBI has been realms of compliance and how are the Satara DCC Bank and Suryakant Patil placing stricter regulations, it is time partners supporting these banks? Budhialkar, Ex-Vice Chairman & Sitting for the banks, especially cooperative

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banks, to create a strong compliance culture. Strong accountability for the work they handle has to be placed on the staff. If there are lapses, be it in the digital sphere or the manual, the onus lies on the employee. Every employee should be updated with the regulations so that they are compliance savvy. Doing business with utmost governance and transparency has also to be incorporated into the banking system. Constant and robust inspections will also help. Strong technological support will ensure that processes are adhering to the regulations 100%. Rajendra Bilare: As much as 50% loan RBI’s suggestion to change the status Pramod Karnard: How do you view the portfolio of district cooperative bank is for from a banking business to a credit new SAF as a tool of regulation by RBI for the agricultural sector. Every few years, society? urban cooperative banks? the state and the central governments Vinod Dadlani: Concerning the Suryakant Patil Budhailkar: RBI bring out loan waiver schemes. This has punishments imposed on the banks, expects that the stress points should created a mindset for the farmers to not the regulator has to see the violations be identified and corrective measures repay the loans immediately. This has in totality. Whether the lapse was taken by the banks. The scope and time become a big burden on DCCBs. While unintentional or procedural has to be frame for defaults given are very less. It the new regulations are in effect for most looked into. Regulations should help to should be a preventive tool rather than of the cooperative banks, we are placing mitigate the damage rather than make it a curative. processes and procedures to handle both harder for the banks to do business. the needs. Pramod Karnad: Why do you think it is Pramod Karnad: As a service partner what difficult for the cooperative banks to Pramod Karnad: RBI has imposed cash help is required through technology to comply with these regulations? penalties on commercial banks for non- comply with the regulations? Dilip Dighe: We are trying our best to compliance. If such a scenario arises, Maheshwar Pathak: Our bank had provide digital services to our customers, what should be the action taken by the envisioned the need to comply with the which are safe and reliable. Cooperative cooperative banks? regulations. We have put the digital system banks are low in resources, be it the staff, Dilip Dighe: I feel all the banks in place and it is secure and scalable. IT infrastructure, or the money that has irrespective of their size should gear up Partnering with Asia’s largest data center to be invested in all this. Creating an for stricter regulations. has allowed us to move to cloud-based entity that can be used as a pool for these Suryakant Patil Budhailkar: computing. We have been helping banks resources is a suggestion that will benefit Sometimes the regulations tie us down with setting up compliance solutions many urban and rural cooperative banks. in doing our business. Hence, innovative digitally. Choice of the product or the ways have to be thought of so that the rules entire package is up to the client bank. Pramod Karnad: RBI is a little lenient are followed as well as there is a profitable Creating private clouds ensures enhanced towards district cooperative banks. If business. security for the bank’s data. Each bank’s regulations are imposed on them, how needs can be customized. are they going to adopt the new norms? Pramod Karnad: How do you perceive [email protected]

Onus of security is on banks, always Security of data is important in all fields and more so for banks. As digital banking is picking up steam, so are the threats. The onus of the security of transactions lies on banks. How are the cooperative banks in India facing this challenge?:

44 Banking Frontiers May 2021 he session on security of data was moderated by veteran banking Ttechnology expert Ravikiran Mankikar. The other panelists were B. Kannan, Joint GM-IT of Repco Bank, Rohit Singh, CISO Arihant Cooperative Bank and Milind Varekar GM & Head IT, Saraswat Bank. To give her legal opinion Puneet Bhasin, cyber law expert. joined the panelists.

Ravikiran Mankikar: RBI has graded the banks into 4 categories depending on payment modes. How do you perceive this gradation? Milind Varekar: The grading approach by RBI is a good move. The staff and the top management Mankikar: Incidence Containment and Customer expectations from banks should be educated on the importance Incidence Response Management are are very high. Hence when it comes to of cybersecurity. The staff should also two critical parts of the security of banks. implementing digital, the banks will have be taught how to handle customer How should the banks go about it? Also, to acquire technology accordingly. grievances or queries on digital banking. should there be knowledge sharing regarding threats for better security of Mankikar: In the absence of a proper Mankikar: As one of the largest the ecosystem? in-house legal team, how can banks cooperative banks of South India, what Milind Varekar: We at Saraswat safeguard themselves from cyberattacks measures have Repco Bank adopted Bank have set up an Incidence Response and address customer needs? to give a sense of security to the Team and Escalation Matrix has been Puneet Bhasin: Cyberattacks on bank customers? defined. The team comprises experts servers are getting frequent. At the same B. Kannan: The top management from IT, Information Security and Risk time, unsecured devices and networks of the bank is keen on providing digital Management. It is important to share the pose a big threat. Though the banks are payment methods to the customers. Also, attack knowledge so that all are aware held responsible, it is not always the we are observing our peers. We try to and can upgrade their security. bank’s fault. Educating with the dos and have the highest security level. don’ts through SMS or short videos could Mankikar: How to create awareness be helpful. One of the solutions could be Mankikar: What are the measures to be among the customers and staff? to have a cyber legal panel. Litigation taken internally by banks to be safe from Rohit Singh: An institution should be is expensive and should be taken as the hackers on the internet? set up by RBI where banks can report the last step. Frauds of higher value can be Kannan: Banks must definitely take incidents. Without disclosing the names defended. Banks should enter into digital smaller safety measures like manageable of the banks affected, such incidents space only when they are completely sure SIEM, to mitigate the threats. Some should be brought to the notice of others of the security and can bear the cost of activities can be outsourced to vendors so that they can learn about the threats. litigation. to safeguard the IT resources. Customers may fear for their deposits with smaller, especially cooperative, Mankikar: What should be the course Mankikar: How implementing SOC banks. of action if the lapse is at the service services will help banks? And what provider’s end? should be done that more banks adopt Mankikar: What are the precautions to Bhasin: A routine roundup of newer SOC? be taken while outsourcing technology threats and updating of the systems will Milind Varekar: It will greatly help and security? help, and adapting fast is also the key. the banks in knowing the impending Kannan: It will be good for banks if Having a cyber-legal department is the threats. As well as the customer can be they write the Service Level Agreement key before venturing into the digital aware of how banks are handling security with the vendors. These should be banking space. threats. It is also important to train reviewed and the vendors’ activities must Mankikar: It is important to make the staff to run these SOCKs. Smaller be monitored. The diligence of vendors customers believe that the bank is fully banks could outsource SOCK to service should be of utmost priority. secure and their money will not be stolen. providers. [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 45 FCBA Accelerating winds of change in digital payments Demonetization and the Indian government’s push for digital transactions, customers have made the shift to digital payments. The cooperative banking segment has also witnessed a change like never before.

igital payments have evolved from can trust. So, the trust factor and the user being viewed as a cost center to experience factor play a big role.” Da revenue generator and a key Sanket Zaware spoke about how banks catalyst for customer acquisition. Post- are now using WhatsApp for messaging to demonetization, digital migration has seen their customers. “Because of the penetration a signifi-cant spike; however, one should of smartphones, we have introduced give credit to the global pandemic for the WhatsApp banking and our cus-tomer base acceleration seen in digital payment growth is increasing on the WhatsApp platform. in a short period. While digital migration So, I think India is the largest country con- was a natural process for the co-operative tributing to the WhatsApp users. Right banking segment, they were apprehensive now, we have restricted it to non-financial about migrating their customers to the transactions, but down the line, financial plat-form. Surprisingly, in comparison transactions will also be a part of the tm the shift to using ATMs, customers WhatsApp offering.” Ravikiran Mankikar transitioning to the digi-tal platform were quick at throwing all the apprehensions out NEWER OPPORTUNITIES of the window. Bank, brought in a new perspective: “Divide Swapnil Jambhale said: “For cooperative Ravikiran Mankikar, former GM-IT at this en-tire phase into 3, first the lockdown banks, the biggest challenge was to acquire SVC Bank and Founder of RVK Consultants, phase, second the new normal phase and new busi-ness. And cooperative banks have said: “Being at both sides of the table, as an three the new today. During lockdown, there never been given a portion of it to acquire implementer of digital technology and now was spike in e-Commerce transactions. In customers on to the digital platform. With guiding banks on im-plementation, the the new normal, small mer-chants were UPI and being one of the PSP licensed major shift is seen in the environment. And allowed to do transactions using QR based bank, we at TJSB Bank got an oppor- covid has brought in new norms. The new payments and UPI payments as people pre- tunity to create a product portfolio on a normal is steadily emphasizing the shift fer contactless payments. We have seen QR platform, whereby we have started from physical banking to digital banking. 200% growth in UPI channel usage and acquiring custom-ers. It is a hybrid model Just like we have worked from home as the card usage has reduced. We are moving which is more of a phygital - the physical the new norm, digital payment is the new towards cashless economy, all thanks to the merchants are issued QR whereby the norm for banking. The usage of a bank pandemic.” current account and CC holders are able to branch as a delivery channel has slumped. For the retail segment, banks are receive their funds on real time rather than Other delivery channels like UPI, IMPS, looking at a lead-based solution moving coming through a typical POS channel, net banking, mobile banking or WhatsApp ahead, he added. where the settlement was on the next day. banking have picked up tremendously.” Jambhale also feels that the user- This has actual-ly boosted us to acquire Sanket Zaware, Head of Digital Banking, hostile applications that certain banks have more CASA and people started opening up Saraswat Bank, shared his observation: developed have made customers prefer more and more accounts with us.” “We’ve seen a paradigm shift in the usage of payment apps like Paytm, PhonePe or Ravikiran Mankikar added: digital platform. However, it is always going Google Pay over bank apps. Also, these apps “Cooperative banks have the BC model or to be a mix of physi-cal and digital. Pre- have even given customers an opportunity the BF model. And these also use the digital covid, we saw 78% of transactions on digital to earn cash backs on routine transaction. platform quite actively. Now, they’re also channels and it jumped by 10%; during the “Look at Amazon Pay. You scan and pay integrating that with the lending model. peak of the pandemic, it went up to 92%. This and you will get cash back. So, RBI has put We could have the loan account openings, reflects the shift. We have already crossed the a 30% cap-ping, which is going to play a and the loan is also happening with the pre-covid levels. For UPI, we are touching 5 major role.” digital platform.” million transactions and on cards we are Ravikiran Mankikar elaborated further: Today, most financial frauds are crossing 1 million (PoS and e-commerce).” “Digital payments are a recent phenomenon primarily happening because of lack of and the com-fort level is increasing. Banks awareness or lack of un-derstanding of the 3 PHASES were forced to use the digital payments. implications of using the digital platform. Swapnil Jambhale, General Manager, TJSB Customers will use those apps which they And most of the time private infor-mation

46 Banking Frontiers May 2021 is disclosed unknowingly leading to frauds. Unless one is sure of the recipients and the links, individuals should not part with their information. Swapnil Jambhale added: “Everyone should be more cautious while releasing a new application or any digital initiative. All are required to follow certain practices; before release, there should be multiple test cycles. We have created a campaign with videos that has helped in creating aware-ness.”

ATTENTION REQUIRED Sanket Zaware Sanket Zaware reiterated that the merchant Swapnil Jambhale ecosystem is very important and there have been ma-jor breaches in this ecosystem over lose the opportunity. We had the oppor- Swapnil Jambhale believes cash is still king, the last months. He says it is imperative that tunity because of covid, or because of the but he is cooperating with the banking strong audits are required or a compliance changing scenario. Larger banks or banks system that is working towards a cashless body is set up to look into these merchant in the private sector took advantage. There economy. ecosystems. “There is a clear differentiation are about 100 banks that are in grade III Sanket Zaware is of the opinion in terms of what the bigger banks (the and grade IV of 1500 coop-erative banks. that customers should use digital commercial banks) can do and what the What it means is that 1400 banks have yet payments, because that is the future. It co-operative banks can do. So, there is a need to get into this platform. So, these banks is more important to make the customer for the lobbying of the cooperative sector. need some handholding.” understand which product suits in today’s The sched-uled cooperative banks have the Mankikar also pointed out that many digital payment ecosystem. It is key to make blanket approval to work in those areas, of the cooperative banks are yet to launch the customer aware of the functionalities. which are also allowed for the commercial mobile banking system. If banks do not And Mankikar concludes by saying the banks. This I think ia one area, which I would compromise on security or governance, and ecosystem of mandis or the marketplaces personally like to see some kind of lobbying.” with appropriate controls in place they will has totally transitioned to a digital economy. Ravikiran Mankikar commented: have better usage of the digital platform. “A clear shift is being observed and it will “Out of 1500, banks, how many are really Most experts believe that digital grow. So, it’s about time to bid goodbye to on digital platforms? If you don’t strike transactions have taken over and there is cash and say hello to payments,” he adds. the iron when it is hot, you are going to a decrease in ATM withdrawals. However, [email protected]

Digital Transformation with Cloud Migration hen cloud computing was first technology ser-vice providers. Cloud migration in the last year has introduced, cloud maturity RBI has mandated the banks to have grown leaps and bounds. Cooperative Wlevels were low and cooperative a cloud strategy in place. Cloud is the banking segment has now started banks were apprehensive about migrating way forward, and banks, according to catching up. There are several early to the cloud as they are governed by the experts from the field, has to adapt success stories of cooperative banks standards, data pri-vacy and regulations. a strategy that involves 2 steps. One is adopting cloud computing for optimizing The cloud space has now become more to migrate the current applications to their processes, reducing their costs, and mature and most of the standards and cloud and second is to explore how the building the capability to scale rapidly. In banking regulations have been amended new application can be designed to be fact, some of the banks have already put to accommodate cloud computing, which cloud native and cloud supported. It is the non-financial operations on to the is paving the way for banks to adopt cloud also equally important for the banks to cloud. With robust infrastructure, the services. And in a bid to stay relevant, develop in house skills on those micro- cloud offers accelerating their growth. cooperative banks are fast turning service architecture and cloud native Cloud, they say, has given the agility that to technology, providing a business applications so that the cloud transition banks were looking for both in business opportunity for leading information is seamless. and technology adaptation.

Banking Frontiers May 2021 47 FCBA

Yogesh Walunjkar Srinivas Rao Dr Jatin Naik

Dhimant Turakhia, DGM, Kalupur switch from the legacy server, there needs when the data is stored. If it is a very Commercial Cooperative Bank, touched to be continuous refreshes, which involves critical data, then it should be en-crypted upon how technolo-gy played a crucial capital expenses and admin efforts. If we in the cloud arena, even the backups.” role in the bank’s growth. He said: “We move to the cloud, the environment itself Dr Jatin Naik, Head IT, The are 100% digital bank providing 24x7 reduces the need for IT staff. It also allows Surat People’s Cooperative Bank, said: services. The lockdown allowed us to us to scale to the hardware according to “Outsourcing is one of the key strategic drive the digital initiatives that helped our needs. Coming to disaster recovery, proactive plans to prevent and minimize us to sustain our market position. The the on-premise solution requires IT staff downtime network outage instead of growth in deposits is a clear sign of it to rectify the issue. Whereas on cloud, we operat-ing within a reactive break. Fixed (deposits grew by 20%). Many of the will always be more disaster resistant, responsibilities that contribute towards cooperative banks are in the cloud space. because the data will be available on a preventive plan out-sourced from a As for our bank, we are using cloud for cloud and with a clone version.” professional IT outsourcing company the debit card and ATM switch in an The cloud computing has its include 24/7 with 365-day support. This ASP model. During the pandemic, to own unique security and compliance means downtime situations are handled better the service, we have imple-mented challenges which must be un-derstood immediately.” automated monitoring tools. We have thoroughly before embarking on it, she He said with digital transactions the PRTG tool, which tells us the health says, adding: “At the same time, migrating being the order of the day and with of all your devices including the servers to the cloud presents the opportunity to new norms in place, it is im-perative to and the endpoints. Those responsible transform security practices and improve look for forward looking and innovative for managing the systems can get the defenses. Trust obvi-ously plays a key products. Visibility and awareness updates on their mobiles. There are other role in the decision on cloud migration. creation also has to move hand in hand tools for remote working that enabled There are also advantages like availabil- to increase the customer base. However, the critical IT staff to work from home ity of retrieving data, the data is safe cloud migration poses 2 major challenges thus ensuring security for those working and secure, and the data is exclusively to banks - security and compliance. from home with the bank’s own devices maintained so on and so forth. Yogesh Walunjkar, IT Head, where the use of local drivers is disabled Rajesh Awasthi, Head of Cloud Dombivli Nagari Sahakari Bank, said: while they’re connected to the corporate and MHS at Tata Communications, “A lot of technologies are coming in and network.” said: “This industry still is driven by a the customer touchpoints are increasing. Aarti Dhole, CIO, Cosmos regulator who defines some boundary In a brick-and-mortar model, the Cooperative Bank, shared her experience: lines to set up the IT systems. The good customer was expected only to be at the “I certainly think that cloud computing part is that RBI has come out with very branches. But now we are expecting them promises shorter commissioning specific guidelines for cooperative banks at multiple levels and it is increasing time, lower initial cost and reduced for cloud migration. One should look for across all dimensions. The infrastructure maintenance costs. Optimizing the a cloud provider who has a data center requirement is growing exponentially, existing system is possible through the inside the country so that data remains and having our own data center and cloud solution. Cloud comes handy when under the purview of the law of land. coping with all these changes, is next you look to get rid of IT scalability issues. From a cybersecurity perspective, in the to impossible. So, we adopt-ed a cloud It is also an economic solution. When we data privacy part, there is a clear fallout migration in a phased manner, primarily

48 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Dhimant Turakhia Rajesh Awasthi Aarti Dhole to gauge the comfort. Coming to the in creating this kind of environment. pointed towards the significance of compli-ance part, what we see is a that While doing this, along with creating the getting the cloud strategy ready with an culture is getting built in this area.” infrastructure, the focus should al-so be incremental approach. As a way forward He added that the perennial doubt given in creating a proper cybersecurity Dr Jatin Naik said, as the bank is in that crops up in the minds of a banker framework around that.” the process of changing its CBS, cloud is whether the cloud ser-vice provider is Srinivas Rao CIO, The Kalupur should definitely be part of the strategy. able to support the banks in compliance Commercial Bank, added: “Cloud Dhimant Turakhia and Srini-vas Rao tasks. In fact, service providers must migration has a few riders that touched upon the focus of their banks. demonstrate the existence of effective accompanies it. To cite an example, if They said while infrastructure upgrade and robust security controls, assuring one puts the analytics, sunset system or is definite-ly on the cards, upgrading customers that their information is net banking or mo-bile banking on cloud, skills also tops the priority list. Rajesh properly secured against unauthorized you need to secure all the interfaces that Awasthi added that cloud adop-tion access, change, and destruction. are required with your core bank-ing. So, within cooperative banking would be a Rajesh Awasthi responded saying: it is advisable to take those applications, journey that is not limited to a single time “We are working towards creating a which are standalone. The lesser the process. Integration between the existing banking community cloud which is a number of interfaces, the lesser the infrastructure and cloud infrastructure is multi-tenant environment. But we ensure complexity of implementation.” key. And as a technolo-gy provider, they that this is complying with the RBI guide- While Aarti Dhole asserted how should aim to become a digital ecosystem lines. We are also taking into account the cooperative banks should work on the enabler for the banking sector. industry knowledge which could be used cloud security model, Yogesh Walunjkar, [email protected] Umbrella Organization can make UCBs stronger The NAFCUB CEO Roundtable at FCBA discusses the future road map for the cooperative industry:

abu Nair, Publisher, Banking Arora, former CGM at RBI, Satish Utekar, resources and protect the smaller players, Frontiers, led the discussion. The former CEO of TJSB Bank. while encouraging newer talents. The Bother panelists were Jyotindra greatest advantage for all the members Mehta, President of NAFCUB and Babu Nair: What is the road ahead under the UO will be that we will be able Chairman of Gujarat State Urban for umbrella organization for India’s to scale larger peaks, while supporting Cooperative Bank Federation, V. S. Das, cooperative banks. each other. Internationally, such umbrella former Executive Director of RBI, D. V.S. Das: It’s been 13 years since the organizations have been providing Krishna, Former CEO of NAFCUB, Raja idea for an Umbrella Organization for the solidarity to the cooperative banks. They Debnath, Banking Expert & Consultant, cooperative banks started. As an Umbrella have been protecting the cooperative banks Anurag Srivastava, CEO of Uttar Pradesh Organization our prime responsibilities by providing capital and liquidity, through Urban Cooperative Banks Federation, P.K. will be to grow stronger together, pool the IT platforms and developing the grass roots.

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At the end of long road RBI has given in the UO? banking should improve despite decrease approval for the umbrella organization. It Satish Utekar: UO is a concept to in quantity. gave a detailed approval and mentioned strengthen the cooperative banks from Arora: The regulator on its part is going various aspects for the structure of the inside as well as outside. The smaller banks extra mile to help the cooperative sector. organization. Some of them were on lack expertise and funds to meet the online It is trying to make them on par with the capital and equity contributions, how challenges. Cooperative banks’ strength commercial banks. it should be managed, etc. RBI has also and reputation will go up. As a result, they strictly mentioned the sources and uses will attract more customers and hence, the Babu Nair: How will you encourage the of the funds. Under the directive, UO can investments will give good returns. cooperative banks to remain in the sector perform other functions like self-regulatory rather than getting converted to small authority, funds management, consultancy Babu Nair: What is the kind of trust we are finance bank or getting privatized? services and R&D. going to build in the sector and make sure Das: The urban cooperative banks have Lot of challenges are there ahead for that the investments are safe? been working in stand-alone mode. They us. The first and foremost is raising funds. Raja Debnath: Many banks and have to be brought under one network. It has to come from the member banks. organizations want to be part of this Krishna: Cooperative banks are here to Getting experts to manage the affairs would wonderful organization. State federations stay. One or 2 banks converting is not going be the next task. and banks which will be part of the UO to bring change in the sector. In recent times, owing to various will be the initial investors. Globally, multi- Arora: The regulators have always been factors, there has been a dip in public lateral organizations which are interested in the favor of the cooperative banks. The trust in cooperative banks. UO will bring in SMEs of India are also keen in taking this rules and regulations applied to them are also professionalism, integrity and customers forward. To keep the ethos of cooperative lenient compared to the commercial banks. back to the cooperative banks. With markets banks we should definitely like to see the Jyotindra Mehta: Cooperative banks being unpredictive and non-performing cooperative banks to reach out to the UO. are universal banks. No one will want assets on the rise, all banks will have to go Jyotindra Mehta: An awareness to move to small finance banks. They through highs and lows. campaign has begun. Once the trust in the would like to keep cooperativeness in the I am confident UO will be the game concept is built it will be easy to get partners cooperative banks. changer for India’s urban cooperative on board. Utekar: Maintaining the banking sector. It will help restore the D. Krishna: The apex body in many cooperativeness in the mind and keeping confidence of depositors in cooperative countries is a holding company and also it as a viable unit is important. It is the banks and give the much needed face lift to its own bank. Such bodies are the largest cooperative bank’s responsibility to make the whole sector. and most trusted financial institutions. The the UO stronger. This is to bring the smaller Anurag Srivastava: How are we going apprehension should fade. We have enough as well as the larger cooperative banks to ensure that investments in the UO are pointers which show that cooperative banks better future. going to fetch returns? will have larger roles to play in the coming [email protected] P K Arora: Certainly, as in any years. It will be a win-win situation for all. investment we will have to give 1 or 2 years Once the top banks in the industry show 3F: Future Fintech for dividends to start coming in. trust others are sure to follow. Raja Debnath: This question can be Framework broken into 2 parts. The 1st part is with Babu Nair: Will measures like insuring the regard to the investment in terms of capital loans given help in creating the confidence and 2nd part in terms of loan which they are of the investors? giving to NBFCs. P.K. Arora has answered Arora: Many smaller banks cannot the capital part - that the dividend part will do business for failing to the criteria set not be an issue out there. If the dividend is by the regulator. Once they come under not paid that’s the income yet to be received, the UO it will be easier for them to scale Kartik so that there is no NPI. But when it comes those criteria. Swaminathan to the loan, if you give a loan to the UO and Author if it gets defaulted you still have to report it. Babu Nair: Large scale consolidation of the Summary: Fintechs have So, RBI is not going to say that because you small urban cooperative banks should not become a force to reckon have given money as a loan to the UO, the be carried in such a structure that it dissolves with and it is interesting money will go down the drain. the entire structure of the sector as sector to understand their plays an important role in the economy. framework and know the Babu Nair: What type of assurance you Anurag: We are seeing decline in the opportunities they hold in the future. would like to have to support investments cooperative banking sector. The quality of

50 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Cooperative Gayatri UCB plans for eKYC, AePS, biometric authentication Mobile banking transactions of the multi-state cooperative bank of Telangana grew 31% yoy:

he Gayatri Cooperative Bank has withdrawal, he has to dial the toll-free taken all the preventive measures number of the bank, which will enable / Tand put in place business continuity activate the card for 10 minutes only. “We plans to respond to covid. The bank’s CEO have received lot of appreciation for this Vanamala Srinivas says the bank conducted service,” says Srinivas. a detailed study of the possible impact of There has been a 42% yoy increase in covid on the overall performance of the bank debit card transactions to 360,6347 with and attempted to take all the the plausible the total amount transacted being `28.5 and pragmatic remedial measures. “We billion, up by 19.6%. have undertaken planning and executed The Gayatri UCB has an IT team these plans to face the pandemic. We comprising 28 staff members, which has expect to have only minimum impact on grown by 11 members last year. the continuity of our business growth and development,” says he. CAPEX, OPEX UP The bank’s capex and opex for FY 2021- CLIENTELE BASE UP 22 for the purpose of digital initiatives At present, the bank has a customer base are `22.63 million and `8.3 million, as of 678,300 and business of `13.59 billion. against `18.57 million and `6.5 million in Srinivas says the bank has a good clientele Vanamala Srinivas claims the previous year. The bank’s data center is compared to the size of the business there is good response from at NetMagic Services. (`24,762 average business per customer). Even during this pandemic year, the bank customers for UPI services CASH MANAGEMENT AT ATM acquired 74,278 new customers and kept on The bank’s non-interest income like expanding the clientele base, he adds. customers for mobile banking and 21% of commission on ATM acquirer transactions The bank provides toll free banking the bank’s total customers are using the decreased due to covid. Srinivas says the services like, FD booking, balance enquiry, mobile banking services. Mobile banking bank has taken a conscious step to keep its mini statement, stop cheque payment, transactions have increased to 828,941 ATMs always filled with sufficient money, cheque book request, etc. Some 58,766 with 31% yoy growth and the total amount replenishing each ATM twice in a day. customers are registered for the service. transacted was `18 billion (up 54%). This has increased customer confidence, contributed to increased use of ATMs and MOBILE BANKING APP UPI: WELL ACCEPTED ultimately resulted in income on acquirer The bank has recently launched ‘Gayatri The bank concentrated on providing hassle transactions, says he. Mobile Banking Application to offer digital free digital payment channels 24x7 thereby The bank is also planning to provide service to the customers. The app has minimizing the need for customers to visit video KYC services. “This is under testing advanced features like login with multi- the branches. The bank launched UPI stage now,” says Srinivas, adding “We shall level authentication (MPIN and fingerprint services during 2020-21 and Srinivas says launch this shortly. We will provide eKYC authentication), QR code scanner for here has been considerable growth in all account opening, biometric authentication, adding intra bank beneficiary account digital payment products. “We have started IRIS authentication and micro-ATMs summary, mini statement, FD booking, UPI services by end of October 2020 and for all types of transactions, automatic transaction on/off, ATM transaction on/off there is good response from customers. reconciliation system, etc.” facility, check favorite transactions, e-mail Within 5 months, we touch 1.7 million The bank is also in the process of statement and more. The app was developed transactions amounting to `4.54 billion,” introducing AePS services and is proposing in-house with the help of CBS vendor BSG says he. to launch banking correspondent services. ITSoft. It is available on Android and “We plan to appoint 400 BCs to get 100,000 iOS versions. CARD ACTIVATION, VOLUME UP new customers and 20% of business from Srinivas says in view of the pandemic, When an account holder registers for BCs in 2021-22. We plan to mobilize most of the educated customers have card security service, his debit card will be more CASA to reduce cost of funds,” started using mobile banking. During FY always in disabled / inactive mode. When says Srinivas. 2020-21, there are 46,259 newly registered he wants to do card transactions like ATM [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 51 Cooperative Telangana SCB boosts cybersecurity as digital banking surges IT companies have redesigned their applications and reallocated their spaces to suit the needs of the bank, which are mostly driven by the customers’ requirements:

equirements by banks for IT the bank. Customers have the choice of services have changed during the depositing cash via cash recycler machine Rpandemic as compared to earlier as per their convenience. Further, several times. The pandemic has transformed initiatives such as the e-office platform, the entire portfolio of the banking sector e-inspection, TAB banking and others and the approach now appears to be are in various stages of implementation that banks have to tread toward their in the bank. customer base. For instance, previously, a customer had to visit a branch for general UPI SUPPLEMENTS CTS banking operations. That is not the Muralidhar says during the pandemic, case now. certain IT services are likely to increase, ‘Nethi Muralidhar, MD, Telangana and some decrease. “For example,” says State Cooperative Apex Bank, points he, “IT services relating to the e-channels out that thanks to developments in are on a continuous surge, which in turn technology, the same customer can has necessitated the bank boosting its make use of different digital banking architectural portfolio. This extensive surge channels to perform the same general has also resulted in the fall of the need for a banking operations. “Our major digital customer to visit a branch in person. Hence, services include ATMs, mobile banking, Nethi Muralidhar reveals the IT services related to CTS modules cash deposit/recycler machines, RTGS/ have been on the vane as IMPS/UPI has NEFT, IMPS transfers, UPI, and utility efforts to provide a security supplemented most of the CTS services.” bill payment systems. Recent times have layer to thwart the threats in seen a humongous surge in the utilization the daily operations BUSINESS MULTIPLIED of IT services,” he says. It is interesting to know how IT services are retained and for newer requirements, have contributed to increasing business OVERWHELMING RESPONSE new partners are engaged. and customer base as well as customer In order to meet the needs of the hour, The number of outsourced IT service satisfaction in 2020-21. Says Muralidhar: IT companies have upgraded their personnel depends on the business of “Due to the unprecedented surge in the use repository to make use of the new the organization. Muralidhar says in of digital channels, transactions in our bank opportunities created by the pandemic. his bank this number has remained have multiplied 4-fold, which has resulted Says Muralidhar: “The response from constant, which is an indication that the in increase of service charges collection IT companies has been overwhelming as bank is self-sufficient in dealing with the portfolio. Further, the loan portfolios have there is no alternative to upgrade one’s situations. witnessed a drastic increase resulting in the self in the industry. These companies business expansion of the bank. The effective have redesigned their applications and OUTSOURCED OPERATIONS handling of such services has improved reallocated their spaces to suit the needs A number of banks are known to have customer satisfaction and the hassle-free of the banks, which are mostly driven by outsourced their IT services during the services have led in increase in customer the customers’ requirements.” pandemic. Based on the central theme of base. The seamless IT services, which work reducing the need for customers’ physical round the clock, had a linear effect on NEED BASED PARTNERS presence in the bank, the Telangana State the scope of the business of the bank and The decision to change the IT service Cooperative Apex Bank has converted thereby resulted in rendering immaculate partners or to retain them is mostly based various operations into digital modes. service to a large customer base.” on the nature of the needs. Murlidhar Citing an example, Muralidhar says explains that for those services which are cash deposit does not need a customer’s CYBER SECURITY PRACTICES found satisfactory, the existing partners presence during the business timings of The cyber security framework is the most

52 Banking Frontiers May 2021 crucial aspect in developing a security shield to the operations and databases of a bank. The C-SOC (Cyber Security Operations Centre) framework of the bank has been designed in line with the guidelines of the Reserve Bank of India. Muralidhar explains: “The framework encapsulates various security elements and features for all the equipment and for all the business operations within our organization. There are various levels in the security architecture that integrate with the bank’s architecture that is in place. The central theme is to provide a fool-proof security layer to the bank to make it capable enough to thwart the threats encountered in the daily operations.”

C-SOC TOOLS Cyber security operations center of Telangana State Cooperative Apex Bank The bank conceived its C-SOC set-up in 2018-19 and it became operational no-time rather than examining the whole specific conditions. Nessus tool is in 2020. Implementation of different set-up and identifying the threat, which is effective in identifying the vulnerability of C-SOC tools has been major aspect in quite cumbersome in the banking-related the network devices in the organization.” the operationalization of the framework. architecture. Muralidhar claims the bank’s “Our C-SOC tools include Spam Gateway There are other tools like Security established technology framework Filtration, Antivirus, Network Monitoring Incident Event Manager, Server is considered as one of the biggest Tool, Bandwidth Management, Web Management Tool and Nessus Tool. achievements in the cooperative banking Helpdesk, etc. Checks are in place in the Muralidhar explains: “The system logs sector and various authorities have given email security gateway in such a way that and different related aspects can be accolades for doing so. “Apart from these each email is scrutinized before entering monitored, which helps in assessing the tools, we are exploring options to create the organization’s domain, thereby possible threats within the organization. other effective security mechanisms filtering spams and unwanted content. The integrated lights out tool helps in in the bank on a periodic basis so that Content in malicious email domains is identification of different bugs even practically all the security loopholes are identified and blocked thereby enabling a without the internet connectivity. This plugged,” he says. fool-proof mailing system. All the systems tool can be effective to deal in disaster- [email protected] and applications are covered by the anti- virus tool which ensures threat-free usage and a check on the possible infiltrations Building the Tech Foundation for Fintechs NEXT with periodic updates,” says Muralidhar. (Technoviti 2021) A network monitoring tool helps to assess the performance of the systems, servers and the network in the organization. All the criticalities can be assessed and corrective measures taken at the outset resulting in hassle-free services. The internet’s bandwidth can be assessed thereby resulting in the related fixes as per the need of the application and further managing the bandwidth to various applications depending on the CTOs and Heads of Innovation in BFSI institutions usage. Triggering different and specific It is necessary to channel the right technology for ensuring systems and alerts to the web helpdesk makes life easy processes are rightly implemented in BFSI institutions. for the administrators to fix the issues in

Banking Frontiers May 2021 53 Cooperative Veershaiv Bank’s e-services transactions have doubled The Kolhapur-based UCB has appointed a consultant to promote its brand and services on social media:

hile digital channels have been and private banks, making the investment crucial for banks, especially productive financially. The quantum of PoS Wthose in the private and public transactions has also doubled. sector, the mid and small sized cooperative banks have initially been slow in adopting ATM ON WHEELS technology in general and digital in As covid restricted people’s movement particular. Suryakant Patil, ex-President and travel, the bank took the initiative of and Director, the Shri Veershaiv launching ATM on Wheels. Says Patil: “We Cooperative Bank, why such a hesitation were the first local bank to do this. We have has happened: “The larger cooperative taken banking to our customers’ doorsteps. banks like Saraswat, Cosmos, SVC and TJSB Our mobile van, with pre-announced were swift to follow and adopt to changing destinations and schedule, reaches our needs of the customer driven era, it is only customers and this has been on for the last now that the cooperative banking sector as many months. This helped us in building a whole has woken up to the advantages an image for the bank and getting new and have started adopting them. However, customers.” the delay has led to a shrinking of the stake of cooperatives in banking below 4%.” ONLINE AGM The 79th annual general meeting of the APP, ECOM, POS, IMPS, UPI Suryakant Patil points out that bank was uniquely conducted online With RBI taking the lead in directing the ATM on Wheels has helped in because of the restraints on people in cooperative banks to transform or perish, improving the bank’s image traveling. As per the directives of the most banks have adopted CBS but owing and in getting new customers Central Registrar, the bank was one of the to earnings and cost restrictions, most of early ones to adopt to online AGM. Patil them have not been able to avail products says the AGM was held in November 2020 and services from well-known technology Suryakant Patil says: “We are sub member through video conferencing and using providers. Patil says his bank, along with of HDFC Bank and offers RTGS and NEFT audio-visual gadgets. There were 3000 several alert cooperative banks, realized the services to our customers. Facilities on ATM registrations and over 1000 participants, disadvantages in not adopting technology and shared ATM network include balance including members and customers. “This and digitization and made amends. “On our inquiry, pin change, cash withdrawal and was the first of its kind event in the history part, we shifted from the earlier DOS based mini statement.” of the bank,” says Patil. system to Windows in 2012, with Infrasoft RuPay card offers secure, easy and providing the solutions. Later, with the convenient way to do transaction on ATMs REDESIGNING WEBSITE help of technology company Finacus, we and PoS anywhere in India and comes The bank engaged Bengaluru-based Digital have added multiple digital services over with daily transaction limit of `20,000 for Age Strategies to do an IT system audit, a period of time like eCom, ATMs, PoS, saving account and `350,000 for current which has provided important guidance in IMPS and UPI, along with a user friendly account at ATM and PoS. Patil adds: laying a roadmap for taking the bank on a yet sturdy mobile app Veershaiv Bank App,” “Our customers have been increasingly road to progress using digitization. says Patil. using their RuPay debit cards to shop, “With plans to provide browser-based dine, pay bills across various merchant usage well within this financial year, we are ATM SHARING ARRANGEMENT establishments.” in the process of redesigning our website to As a part of offering electronic banking make it interactive. We have also engaged services to its customers, the bank has ATM, POS TRANSACTIONS a consultant to promote our brand and entered into an ATM sharing arrangement Covid has forced many customers to services on social media,” says Patil. with NPCI-NFS for RuPay debit cum make extensive use of digital services. He concludes stating: “We are now ATM cards. The NFS network has 83 The bank’s e-services usage transactions among the 5 big cooperative banks in plus member banks as well as 208 sub have nearly doubled. Its 16 ATMs are Kolhapur district and we are poised to member banks with more than 182,000 providing services to triple the number of launch a wide range of technology services.” ATMs across India for 24x7 ATM service. customers of that of local branches of PSU [email protected]

54 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Country Report - Open Banking Bahrain - initiator of open banking in MENA Bahrain is considered the poster boy in introducing open banking in the Gulf:

ahrain’s central Bank has initiated an providers for a single customer. Under the Open Banking Framework (Bahrain central bank’s rules, all banks are mandated BOBF) in October 2020 ‘to ensure to supply ancillary service providers ‘access holistic implementation of open banking to customer accounts on an objective, non- services by the industry’. The Framework discriminatory basis based on consents includes detailed operational guidelines, obtained from the customer’ while ensuring security standards and guidelines, adherence to existing laws. customer experience guidelines, technical open API specifications and the overall BASED ON GLOBAL STANDARDS governance framework needed to protect The Framework is principally based on The National Bank of Bahrain and Tarabut Gateway join hands to provide open banking in Bahrain customer data. These guidelines follow global ISO standards, specifications and the comprehensive rules on open banking guidelines as published by the Open the first bank in the region to roll out open previously issued in December 2018. The Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) banking solutions. The bank is offering it as central bank had engaged consultancy in the U.K, the Open Banking standards a service, which allows licensed third parties firm Deloitte for the purpose and had held in Australia, and the Payment Services access to customers’ financial data, which discussions with retail banks and other Directive (PSD2). These global standards, in turn is presented to the customers in a financial services institutions before the specifications and guidelines have been simple and intuitive interface allowing them guidelines were finalized. customized for implementation in Bahrain to see a consolidated view of their accounts, Rasheed Al Maraj, Central Bank of based on existing practices and terminology cards and loan balances across banks in Bahrain Governor, had said at the launch used by the Bahrain ecosystem. Bahrain. Also, advanced analytics solutions that the Framework was a continuation of Bahrain is often considered as one of using consolidated customers’ financial data the central bank’s efforts in developing a the main poster boys of the new paradigm recommend to customers the best services local ecosystem to encourage innovation in in data revolution in the financial services that cater to their needs. Only licensed banking, whilst providing customers with sector aiming to create new competition in businesses and institutions can seek access advanced services that keep pace with the the industry, encourage innovation and give to NBB’s open banking platform. development witnessed by the global banking consumers and businesses access to better NBB’s open banking also offers industry, and will also assist emerging fintech deals. And the authorities are working in close customers complete control over their data, companies to work competitively. association with fintechs and startups as in allowing them to choose what information Singapore and London to develop a model they want to share with other institutions FOR ALL RETAIL BANKS for banking based on data that is transparent, and businesses. It is incorporating various The central bank’s rules relating to open efficient and secure. The central bank is getting security features including multi-factor banking, first introduced in December techology advice and guidance from fintechs authentication, biometrics, and facial 2018, mandates the adoption of open like Almoayed Technologies and its subsidiary recognition for customer registration in banking for all retail banks in the Kingdom. Tarabut Gateway. Tarabut Gateway is the first their open banking solution. While a majority of the banks and the third and only licensed open banking provider in the NBB has also come out with a stand- parties have progressed on implementation Middle East and North Africa alone mobile app that will ultimately have the of open banking, the central bank felt there features like the ability to carry out transactions is need for a high degree of consistency in MANY BENEFITS to and from any compliant Bahraini bank. the implementation in order to accelerate It is perceived that in a situation where Several other banks have invested adoption. It is towards this objective people have more than one bank account, in creating open banking services in the that it has developed the Framework in open banking will help customers make price Kingdom and all of these are powered by consultation with industry participants. comparisons based on analysis of all their Tarabut Gateway. It is expected that financial The central bank has examined various account data and become more financially institutions throughout the MENA region trends that point in favour of having an open literate. The idea then is to create a more will soon be able to offer account aggregation banking framework, especially the hyper- competitive, robust infrastructure which services and a range of new open banking growth in e-commerce, increased adoption allows consumers to make better decisions. services. This will set in motion a move to a of internet payments, increasing consumer new way of banking and will support banks demand for mobile-based payment NBB FIRST MOVER in Bahrain to create more seamless and solutions, developments in the fintech space The National Bank of Bahrain, in intuitive banking experiences. and increased demand for multiple account partnership with Tarabut Gateway, became [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 55 Country Report - Blockchain Mexico uses blockchain to fight displacement, corruption Mexico is one country that is enthusiastic about the power of blockchain in getting rid of several social maladies:

exico is one of the first countries entity of financial activities in Mexico in Latin America to regulate and BIVA is the second stock exchange in Mblockchain and cryptocurrencies. Mexico. The Congress of the Union, the country’s legislature, had in 2018. passed a bill in this GOVERNMENT PROJECT regard, regulating blockchain technology, Besides these initiatives, the Mexican cryptocurrency firms and crowdfunding. Government has undertaken a project The Congress did not recognize called Blockchain HACKMX, which uses cryptocurrencies as currency, but as digital blockchain technology to track and validate assets for which it created rules to prevent bids for public contracts. The National Blockchain Association in Mexico comes into being money laundering and corruption. The Digital Strategy and the Ministry of Public corruption. The population of Mexico grows Mexican Central Bank has been given the Administration along with Campus Talent at an annual rate of 1.4%, which remained authority to monitor companies involved are partners in the project. constant since 2000. However, during the in cryptocurrency. With Mexico not having As a part of the project, the Government last 10 years, some areas experienced a a very clean image as far as corruption is launched the Digital Government Vertical drop in the rate of population growth. This concerned, the country’s government has in 2017 to encourage hackers and displacement, according to some research, also initiated studies on the multiple use technocrats to transform public services has been observed due to the violence cases of blockchain and intends to bring with the help of blockchain technology. perpetrated by armed groups and their transparency in the use of the technology. Five government institutions and a state uncontrollable crime activities. It is hoped In Mexico, there is a community called government - Jalisco - are part of the project, that use of blockchain can overcome the ‘Blockchain MX’ which works to encourage which has the ultimate aim of bringing issues of displacement. and promote the use and development of disruption in the governmental processes. Use of the technology in projects like blockchain. Its ultimate aim is to eliminate The departments/services targeted were Digital Identity, Payment Systems and the problems of corruption from Mexico e.firm, the service tax administration, Cryptocurrency is expected to help global by bringing trust and transparency with which is mandated to develop a prototype migrants and refugees. It is also hoped that blockchain. to integrate blockchain in its activities to with a global digital identity, refugees can confirm authentication, integrity, reliability become the owners of their identity, while BLOCKCHAIN ASSOCIATION and non-repudiation of transactions for any the blockchain based payment system Besides Blockchain MX, there is the signing act, the Public Property Registry, can help displaced people transfer money Blockchain Association founded by 7 which is aiming to develop a functional without a bank system. entities - Bitso, Lvna Capital, ConsenSys, prototype for Public Registry of Property Corruption is another malady that Volabit, Exponent Capital, GBM and and Commerce, Digital Identity, which will affects the country. Both the private BIVA. Its endeavour is to educate citizens ultimately allow complete accreditation of and public sectors are recognizing the in the use of blockchain technology. identity of persons living in the country importance of blockchain to bring trust and Among the founding entities, Bitso is and Mexicans living across the world, transparency to the business operations the Mexican Bitcoin Exchange that Transactional Transfers Support, which is with its features like auditability, allows users to join the world of crypto tasked with the responsibility of developing traceability and immutability. with nominal investment, Lvna Capital a functional prototype on blockchain In financial services, the Mexican is a crypto hedge fund seeking value in which should enable to maintain the Association of Insurers is planning to the blockchain ecosystem, ConsenSys traceability of information of transactions explore blockchain solutions to validate Academy is engaged in educating citizens for the support granted to a property, and insurance policies, improve compliance and on the blockchain technology by providing Certificates of Deposit, which is developing reduce the auditing time. them the professional training by a prototype which should integrate Register While blockchain technology is just experienced blockchain trainers, Volabit of Certificates, Warehouse and Goods with making its presence felt in the country, is a cryptocurrency trading platform, blockchain to execute transactions related both the public and private sectors are Exponent Capital is the first cryptocurrency to Certificates of Deposit. aware of the technology’s potential to bring investment firm in the country that has transparency and security to the ecosystem. shown that a decentralized model can UNIQUE PROBLEMS Mexico is expected to become the powerful eliminate the intermediaries from the Mexico has certain unique problems, leader in the blockchain in the coming years. financial system, GBM is the controlling which includes forced displacement and [email protected]

56 Banking Frontiers May 2021 Research Notes - Digital Banking 2025 Digital transformation and beyond in Asia-Pac banks The second edition of ‘Fintech & Digital Banking 2025 Asia-Pacific’ by IDC and Backbase says banking of future will be more customer-driven and platform-oriented:

n the wake of the pandemic and with the Capabilities of the Customer The Best of Both Worlds Capabilities of a Hyper- Engagement Platform Personalization Ready momentum for digital transformation Customer experience that meets expectations Technology Platform of speed and rapid change in personalization Open, microservices-based API enabled regardless of channel customer engagement platform accelerating once again, there is a hyper- Connected experiences that integrate data, Integration with digital core systems and I action, and insights across all channels applications supporting a bank’s digital focus on customer engagement beyond Hyper-personalization especially for high- strategy impact business processes A technology platform to plug and play new Personalization that is continuous and em Integration P functionalities that banks invest in to bolster physical branches and customer call adaptive, based on what the bank knows about yst latf os n to a host of partners a or digital muscle Ec gratio nd tr m the customer inte uste Openness to third parties to provide and of d th ase ird Ability to change customer engagement s e chnology Pl pa consume functionalities, application, and centers, says the second edition of ‘Fintech w Te atf rt llo en ervices through m orm ies strategy based on evolving strategy of the bank A p ity of s icrose data — to accelerate Open Banking O sabil rvice reu s an es d A Support for evolving principles in customer sur PI & Digital Banking 2025 Asia-Pacific’ by IDC En s engagement such as data privacy, consent, security, and data access and utilization and Backbase. Omni-Channel P e Integration r s Facilitates consistency of experience P o The study covers 6 countries in the e across various systems of interaction r n s a o li n z region, including India, and concludes that it Customer Customer a a t Experience Strategy l i iz o Orchestration Planning a n t Executes customized Orchestrated is all about being even more customer-driven Designs customer i T o customer engagement customer engagement life-cycle management n h a strategies through data t and platform-oriented. “More importantly, business processes such and insights S

c

as initiation, origination, a

l it is about overcoming legacy technology, servicing, and sales e

s embracing new ways of working to be digitally fit and resilient amid the uncertainties ahead, banks having to focus on risk as they had to offering intuitive, relevant and personalized strengthening innovation ‘muscles’, protecting respond to the crisis. content through newly-launched digital margins and growing revenues,” it says. Hunt for Customer Insights as banks channels. Banks should achieve agility were not able to come up with a view of the to evolving digital propositions, with 5 CHALLENGES true state of the customer in 2020. the ability to integrate with third-party The study lists 5 challenges that force a functionalities, and add more features to restart among banks. These are: PRO-INNOVATION INDIA offerings without spending more on core Digital Transformation, Again, as banks In the India-specific study, the report says system transformation. go back to the drawing board on their India continues to be one of the most pro- The Super Banking App: As digital digital transformation programs. Each innovation banking markets, but banks still transactions grow at an exponential rate, transformation road map has always been struggle to meet the higher standards of banking-tech partnerships will build emphasis unique, but in the post-pandemic world, this availability, reliability, and quality that being on mobile-platforms to design innovative and is more differentiated, based on the context digital-first entails. personalized customer journeys. of the bank and the opportunities it sees in The highlights of the findings are: Digital to the Front-end: Banks still the recovery cycle. u 75% improvement to turnaround time of see as much as 3% of transactions not going Challengers Challenged with 63% of high-impact business processes for banks through - presenting a huge gap in service banking customers in Asia Pacific willing to u Seven out of 10 tier 1 and tier 2 banks are reliability. While banks need to continue switch to neo banks or new digital challengers aiming for frictionless and contactless investments into the stability of core engines in 2020. As the economic impact of covid banking experience for customers at and automation of back-office operations, deepened, customers stuck it out with the time of onboarding, with focus focus on designing customer-facing digital traditional incumbents. New challengers on developing virtual capabilities in services takes much higher priority. will emerge and by 2025, there will be 100 customer verification and authentication. The study says the next 5 years is about new challengers across the region, with at u 70% year-on-year growth in mobile reaccelerating digital-first. “This will be least 2 digital banks in every Asia/Pacific transactions. about success in 2 directions: relentless market that will present a serious challenge u 30% increase in spending on analytics focus on ‘right-fit’ technology investments to incumbents. and AI/ML technologies as banks build and orchestrating hyper-personalization. Quality over Quantity as covid has forced recommendations, facilitation and advice The banks that will succeed in digital on a rapid shift of customer transactions and as their business. the road to 2025 will be able to use the right interactions to digital. Asia Pacific banks tools, technology, platforms and frameworks rushed to meet an average of at least 50% OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDIA that are good for their own unique brand of growth of digital transactions. Ensuring the India, according to the study has several digital. They will also have to orchestrate quality of these interactions has remained opportunities: hyper-personalization so that personalization a challenge. Modern and Modular Architecture: happens every single time,” it says. Temporary slowdown in innovation with 60% of banks in India admit to the struggle in [email protected]

Banking Frontiers May 2021 57 Research Notes - Payment Service Providers Challenges of the decade for PSPs Credit Institutions and other payment organisations around the world, are reacting to the changes and challenges in today’s emerging payments landscape:

ayment Service Providers (PSPs) are now facing some of the greatest Core banking system Pchallenges of the last decade in Built on components customised or developed in-house 61% staying competitive and adapting to these Primarily hosted and managed by third party 7% changes, finds a recent survey. Done by TAS Provided by an independent vendor as a market soluঞon 32% Group in partnership with Bobsguide, the (core banking, ERP) survey lists the key challenges for businesses operating in the payments space as: how ECB TIPS are more frequently adopted solutions seems to depend more on the size to compete in the new instant payments in European countries and allow a wider of the respondent’s organisation than on scenario; how to successfully migrate to European reach. the nature of the service. Interestingly, the new standards like ISO 20022; and how u As much as 75% of respondents are respondents stating that they would never to effectively manage and optimize their planning a migration to ISO 20022 and use cloud solutions were nearly always from liquidity. It said these challenges are both many of them are expecting to work banks with more than $50 billion in assets. separate and interlinked. on their systems for this, particularly The type of service was pertinent with just the larger banks. Over half (64%) of 14% saying they would never adopt the ADOPTING NEW TECHNOLOGIES respondents, and all of those based in cloud for stress testing solutions, while this PSPs, the survey finds, are able to leverage the Eurozone, feel positively about the increased to 25/29% for the other services.” several innovative technologies, including ECB TIPS Interoperability initiative, The PSPs were asked whether there adopting cloud technology, to support expecting to realise real benefits in exists a link between a willingness to this important transition and ensure a ACH interactions and through a further move to the cloud and the core banking successful evolutionary journey. “The cloud adoption of instant payments in Europe. system currently in place. As much as seems to demonstrate a potential to deliver u 90% of respondents said they are 61% of respondents said they are using the greatest positive impact, providing an planning to improve their intraday fragmented or in-house developed core opportunity to dismiss legacy technology liquidity management systems to banking systems, with the large majority of constraints within an unprecedented short comply with regulations, provide better those representing banks with more than timeframe and to fast-track evolution,” says corporate services or reduce costs and $50 billion in assets. the survey. risks. All non-bank PSP respondents said The survey had 3 objectives: they were planning implementations or INSTANT PAYMENTS 1. Confirm the agenda for instant improvements, and 64% of respondents The study concluded that the majority of payments, ISO 20022 and intraday said that the pandemic has prompted payment service providers share a similar liquidity management new investments in liquidity systems, agenda - instant payments development, 2. Obtain insights into perceived support both on existing and new ones. ISO 20022 migration and liquidity offered by current systems u 75% of respondents are planning a optimization. It says the pandemic has 3. Understand cloud adoption strategies migration to ISO 20022 and many of them raised serious concerns around liquidity, and trends are expecting to work on their systems for particularly in PSPs that are not credit Participants included PSPs, banks, this, particularly the larger banks. institutions and smaller banks. credit institutions from around the world. u Instant payments were perceived as the It says it is also assumed that overall most effective systems currently in place, existing systems are failing to satisfy, with KEY FINDINGS with 60% of the respondents saying they systems currently in place appearing to The key findings of the survey are: were satisfied or highly satisfied. leave much room for improvement. “Cloud u 61% of respondents confirmed that they solutions and managed services offer a are already participating in an instant CLOUD ADOPTION highly viable option for improving these payment scheme and only 20% do not The study finds that overall, banks with shortcomings for many PSPs. In short, the expect to have adopted the ‘new normal’ more than $50 billion in total assets digital transformation journey concerning by the end of 2021. PSPs are working have more fragmented core systems and payments and liquidity is still in its early with different instant ACHs, most seem not to consider the cloud a way to stages with many implementations still to often the local ACH in their country, overcome present constraints. It says: be carried out,” it says. although, as expected, EBA RT1 and “In general a willingness to adopt cloud [email protected]

58 Banking Frontiers May 2021 People Track T. Rabi Sankar is new Deputy Governor, RBI Major organizational rejig The government has appointed Reserve Bank of India (RBI) executive director T Rabi Sankar as at HDFC Bank the fourth Deputy Governor of the central bank. Rabi Sankar was in charge of the payments system, HDFC Bank has announced a major fintech, information technology and risk management at the RBI. He succeeds B.P. Kanungo, organizational reshuffle, changing the who has retired on 2 April after getting a one-year extension. Rabi Sankar now joins Mahesh portfolios of the bank’s core team. Kumar Jain, Michael Patra and Rajeshwar Rao as deputy governors. An M The bank’s Executive Director Kaizad Phil in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, he has handled all Bharucha will continue to head wholesale critical departments at the RBI, including debt management. A career banking, including corporate banking central banker, he joined the RBI in 1990 and has worked in various group, capital and commodities markets positions. His areas of expertise include exchange rate management, group and financial Institutions. Rahul reserves portfolio management, public debt management, monetary Shyam Shukla, currently the Group Head operations and development, regulation and surveillance of financial – Wholesale Banking, will now head markets, payment systems and IT infrastructure. He has served as an Commercial Banking (MSME) and the Rural IMF Consultant (2005-11) on developing government bond markets vertical. Smita Bhagat, currently Country and debt management. He represented RBI on international forums Head of Government and Institutional like Bank for International Settlements and various internal and external Business, e-Commerce and Startups, will expert committees and working groups. In addition to his professional continue to head Govt/Institutional Banking career at RBI, he is Chairman, Indian Financial Technology and and drive the expansion of the bank’s rural Allied Services (IFTAS), member of Board of Directors, ReBIT presence, as well as the startup sector. and member of Governing Council IDRBT. Arvind Kapil, currently Country Head - Retail Assets, will continue to head retail assets Jose Kattoor is new ED portfolio. Rakesh Singh, currently the Group Head – Investment Banking and Private RBI has also announced the appointment of Jose J. Kattoor as the Banking, will now also be responsible Executive Director. He was heading Bengaluru Regional Office of the for marketing, retail liability products and Reserve Bank as Regional Director for Karnataka. As ED, he will look managed programs. Parag Rao, currently after Human Resource Management Department, Corporate Strategy Country Head – Payments, Consumer and Budget Department and Rajbhasha Department. In his 3 decades Finance, Digital Banking and Marketing, will of service at RBI, he has handled communication, human resource now drive the technology transformation management, financial inclusion, supervision, currency management and digital agenda and payments vertical. and other areas. He holds a post-graduate qualification from Institute Ramesh Lakshminarayanan, Chief of Rural Management, Anand, Bachelor of Law from Gujarat University, Information Officer, and Anjani Rathor, and Advanced Management Program (AMP) from Wharton School of Business, Pennsylvania. Chief Digital Officer, will report to Rao. Ravi Santhanam, currently the bank’s Chief Marketing Officer, will now also be Sudatta Mandal is Dy MD at SIDBI responsible for driving digital marketing as Sudatta Mandal has taken charge as the Deputy Managing Director a stand-alone delivery channel. Santhanam of SIDBI. The appointment is for a period of 3 years. Mandal was in will additionally be responsible for the EXIM Bank and was functioning as its Chief General Manager when retail liability products and managed he was selected for the SIDBI assignment. He has more than 25 years programmes at the bank. Sampath Kumar, of experience in international trade and investment finance, project currently Group Head - Liability Products, finance, structured lending, SME lending, including cluster financing, Third Party Products, and Non-resident and trade finance. A B-Tech. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Business, will now be in charge of all Institute of Technology, Kanpur, he also holds a Post Graduate Diploma Tele-service Relationships, including VRM in Management with specialization in Finance from the Indian Institute delivery channel of the bank. Arvind Vohra, of Management, Calcutta. Group Head - Retail Branch Banking, Retail Trade and Forex will continue to Indranil Pan is Chief Economist at Yes Bank drive the efforts to expand through branch banking. Ashish Parthasarathy - Group Yes Bank has appointed Indranil Pan as Chief Economist. He will be leading Head, Treasury and GIB will now also be the Business Economic Banking function, the economic intelligence unit responsible for the tele-service/sales/ of the bank. He has over 30 years of experience in economics research and relationship channel. Bhavesh Zaveri, client engagement and advisory. He has served as Group Chief Economist Group Head - Operations, will continue to of leading Indian banks such as IDFC First Bank and Kotak Mahindra handle the entire operations of the bank, Bank. He has also been associated with leading organizations like Kotak and additionally, be responsible for the Mahindra Capital Company, CRISIL, Business India Magazine and Dalal entire ATM channel operations across Street Journal. Indranil holds a Bachelors in Science from Presidency the country. College, Kolkata with a Masters in Economics from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Banking Frontiers May 2021 59 RNI REG. NO. MAHENG/2002/9930 POSTAL REG. NO. MCN/70/2019-2021 POSTED AT MUMBAI PATRIKA CHANNEL SORTING OFFICE, GPO, MUMBAI ON 16-17 OF EVERY MONTH PUBLISHING DATE 16th OF EVERY MONTH

Presents NBFCs MARCHING to TOMORROW

NBFC sector which faced a huge downturn in the ILFS and DHFL era and the covid era and were burdened with a lot of stressed assets, got a lease of life with some favorable policies specially in the housing finance sector and otherwise. The return of growth in the MSME and SME sector have also signaled a stronger comeback to the NBFCs into the growth trajectory. With the Fintech sector strongly entering into the lending space, on one hand the sector is either equipping itself to be more versatile, agile and technologically advanced, while on the other, the sector is also looking at strong fintech tie-ups to reduce stressful assets and quick turnaround time with frictionless experience and longer and secure customer engagements. Banking Frontiers has been closely working with all the key segments within the NBFC sector and has been understanding minutely their growth trajectories. In order to create a strong ecosystem for forward looking business strategies and growth, Banking Frontiers is bringing together the NBFC and the New age NBFC and Fintech ecosystems to engage with each other and the new age technological solutions so as to explore newer paradigms in the NBFC space.

ANNOUNCING DNA Distinguished NBFC Awards 2021

Call for Nomination

Last date for nomination: July 16, 2021

Please reach out to following Managers to have an elaborate discussion on the program.

Please contact for more information: Ashish Verma : 98332 36943 [email protected] Ravi Lalwani : 77382 97946 [email protected] Stalin Saldhana : 91677 94513 [email protected]