Young India Demands Secured Banking Products On The Touch Of A Button

The digital wave has created numerous futuristic assumptions about the banking industry. A panel moderated by Milan Naik, Founder & CEO, Goals 101 Data Solutions at the 11th BW MAGNA Awards 2019 delved further on the topic 'Impact of Digital in the Indian BankingIndustry'. 

Anuradha Rao, Deputy MD and CDO, State Bank of India while opening the panel for discussion said, "The fact that you are banker in India means, your legacy is traditional across range of diverse customer demands. In order to keep varied customers we need to be the bank for that choice in a transforming country. We are providing simple, responsive and innovative products in the digital space. Our organization has revamped when it comes to service, transparency, ethics and sustainability. SBI today is constantly interacting with fintechs and we have strategy meetings across all our sectors every month". 

India is getting younger in terms of their consumer base. While new services and products influence the country, education is being propelled into adoption across multiple age groups.

"I can tell you that the last 3 years has seen a shift in mindset. I see my team to be embedded with the product team. They go together on sales meetings understanding better the requirements of our clients. The flow of business has changed and the challenge is to detect problems before they take place. With a push from regulators, there has been an increase in the momentum making a big difference to digital banking". Said Shrinath Bolloju, South Asia Operations & Technology Head, Citibank.

Ecosystems will see a larger role in the power of platforms. This will decide the pecking orders of the financial industries. Banks in this digital evolution will look towards technology, data and design firms to stay ahead of the curve. 

Deepak Sharma, CDO, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, "There was a time when people asked us about our strategies around digital. But digital is a medium to develop a strategy and not the strategy itself. Digital as a function is present in all analogue companies. The inspirations to adopt to the new wave are all all sitting outside the BFSI industry. As insurgance is using speed to get scale, our thought process revolves around using incumbrance to gain speed". 

"Digital channel has seen a change in mindsets. We have successfully catered to our clients during this digital shift. Legacy banking has never been an issue for us at the Bank of Baroda. We serve 12 crore customers universally out of which 50% belong to rural areas. We have less than 20% customer based transactions daily on our digital channels. The partnership modules too are changing while we are creating tie ups with the Ubers and Amazons of the world", said Akhil Handa, Head - Fintech & Mobile Banking, Bank of Baroda.

The panel concluded with positive insights in terms of digitization in banking. The awards also saw many banking stalwarts indulging into discussions about the future of the banking industry.