Technology Initiatives
Adopting a ‘digital first’ approach
We have achieved significant scale over the past three years through prudent deployment of technology to provide superior experiences to our customers. Besides building efficiency through automation, digital technologies have widened our reach and helped us grow at a faster pace without increasing our operating costs.
In line with our ‘digital first’ approach, we relaunched the Selfe platform during the year under review to provide customers an even faster digital onboarding option from the comfort of their homes. A customer can now open a savings account or a fixed deposit account in under 5 minutes using their Aadhaar and PAN numbers. We also introduced a Tab-based onboarding facility for bank personnel, to meet prospective customers and complete their onboarding digitally, in minutes. Encouraged by the success of this initiative, we plan to further elevate delivery experience with customer lifecycle management featuring video-enabled KYC fulfilment and virtual relationship manager (RM) interactions.
We are live on various National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) payment products, offering services like Micro ATM (AePS/Card+PIN enabled), and UPI/IMPS/eNACH, prepaid cards and ETC-enabled through API plugins for partners and clients to avail payment services through direct (host to host) integration, lending greater flexibility and scale of business. We set up our own Data Exchange Model (DEM) for Cheque Truncation System (CTS) with enhanced security, replacing the existing Clearing House Interface (CHI). We implemented a Data Mart for centralised MIS reporting and analytics.
Further, we implemented a host of customer-facing as well as business facing initiatives. On the customer side, we upgraded our Internet and Mobile Banking platforms with revamped UX and Chat bots. Other initiatives include facial authentication for login and transaction, Loyalty & Rewards engine; cash recycler machines with inter-bank operability, and self-service based savings account and fixed deposit creation, as well as FASTag registration and purchase.
On the business side, we built a fully redundant data centre and branch-network infrastructure. Further, we developed a CRM in-house. Other initiatives include Tab-assisted onboarding for liability and MF customers; collections for Assets and MF customers; Business Correspondent assisted onboarding and transactions; RPA for automating backend processes like AML monitoring (overall 25+ bots live); FRM for real‑time transactions’ fraud monitoring; and automated NPA identification. We have also set up a separate ‘digital office’ for driving innovation and adequately trained our people on technology-enabled agile delivery.
With an eye on driving innovation to co‑create the future, we are opening up our API kit to enable Banking as a Service (BAAS) and facilitating partnership with emerging fintech companies. BankOpen became our first partner in this journey to drive new SMB (Small & Medium Business) customer acquisition. Under this arrangement, customers are provided a rich suite of products through the BankOpen portal (invoicing/GST payments/expense dashboard), combined with our API-based banking services.
We have also focused on technology to be future ready. This technology infrastructure readiness enabled us to deliver uninterrupted banking services to our customers while ensuring the safety of our people following the nationwide lockdown imposed on March 24, 2020 to combat the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.
