Sanchay Sinha, Country Head – Retail Banking at South Indian Bank unfolds the business strategies adopted by the bank to tap the new credit customers:
Ravi Lalwani: What has been your organization’s performance in acquiring New Credit Customers in FY 2021-22?
Sanchay Sinha: The bank had added more than 3 lakhs new credit customers during the last financial year. We have the strategy of ‘Profitability through quality credit growth.’ The bank achieved around 43% of the advance’s portfolio since October 2020, amounting to `278 bn. Our focus is on ramping up low-risk products like gold loans and adding high-yield products like credit cards and personal loans. The majority of our new credit customers (number-wise) is sourced through gold, credit card, and personal loan. The bank has adopted various measures including modifications in credit policy and credit underwriting norms to ensure sustainable credit growth with better quality.
Which of your products are popular among new credit customers?
Gold loans, corporate loans, credit cards, and personal loans are popular products among new credit customers. In the retail business, personal loans, credit cards, and gold loans are the portfolios that have shown growth and are yielding better interest rates for the bank. In the corporate segment, the bank is focused on onboarding high-rated corporate portfolios, keeping in mind the quality. The share of ‘A’ and above-rated corporate accounts (`1 bn and above) has improved to 88% in June 2022.
Which are the top 3 regions where you are acquiring the newest credit customers?
South Indian Bank’s top 3 regions are Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai. Regarding our number of accounts, Chennai, Hyderabad and Coimbatore are the top 3 regions.
Through which channels are you attracting the maximum number of new credit customers?
The bank structure has been revised with independent verticals for assets and liabilities. This has enabled the bank to give focused attention and device-specific strategies for each business group. Also, creating new sales teams and scaling up the DSAs has brought in new leads from ‘A’ and above-rated corporates.
Partnership with Yubi for lead generation and engaging with top-rated corporates has brought in new leads for the corporate business. Digital marketing campaigns have also helped in generating quality leads for the business. Tie-ups with real estate developers in major metro cities have helped us acquire customers in the housing and mortgage loan segment.
The maximum number of new credit customers in gold loans and other retail products are through various attractive campaigns run across the regions.
Briefly describe the organization’s initiatives in terms of marketing, partnering, technology, analytics, etc, to tap NTC customers.
As an organization, we value synergies and engage our efforts in partnerships. Following are a few partnerships with bureaus like CIBIL for customer leads and retention. We have done partnerships with Vayana, McKinsey and Nucleus for bringing in new credit underwriting models. We have formed a new data analytics team for leveraging the huge liability franchise and have done a tie-up with OneCard for a credit card facility for our customers. Our bank is focusing on collaborating with fintech and merging customer bases. We are participating in various events for sourcing new leads and business generation. On the marketing front, we have been taking an integrated marketing communication approach to maximize awareness like extensive search display campaigns, event participation, and mapping customer’s journey through data analytics.”
What are the recent launches in the digital space?
South Indian Bank has recently launched its internet banking platform ‘SIBerNet’ for its corporate and retail customers. It allows customers to do online payments by selecting South Indian Bank from the list of banks on CBIC’s portal. This facility was kicked-off with the inauguration of the bank’s e-FPB. The e-FPB will be attached to the bank’s corporate branch in Delhi. Consequently, the bank will collect customs duty on behalf of the CBIC under authorization from the RBI.
The accreditation by the bank will enhance convenience for retail customers, small and medium enterprises, and large corporates for their government-related banking transactions, taxes, and other revenue payment facilities.
South Indian Bank has also launched a new portal called ‘SIB TF Online’ for its corporate EXIM customers. The portal facilitates a platform for trade-related payments to foreign entities remotely. Customer can initiate the payment request over SIB TF Online after uploading the relevant supporting documents for the transaction.
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