Saroj Nayak, GM – IT, speaks about the direction and velocity of digital initiatives at the Kolkata headquartered PSU bank:
Mehul Dani: How has the digital strategy of the bank been implemented in the current FY?
Saroj Nayak: During the unprecedented era of the pandemic, which took almost the entire 2020 from us, we have been able to experience the strength of technology. It is established now, undoubtedly, that technology is the tool which can bridge the gap between demand and supply or to say between business and consumer. This is more pertinent in the case of service industry like banks.
We have strengthened our call center so that customers can reach us for any clarification/ enquiry. ‘UCO Sampark’ is the IVR based phone banking solution that provides automated banking facility to the customers. For walk-in customers, we have introduced lead generation facility through miss call/ SMS / website during a pandemic so that customers can submit their requests. Our call center executives in turn contact them and help them in onboarding.
We are proud to anchor the ‘PSB Alliance – Door Step Banking Project’, which was launched by the Finance Minister on 9 September. Through this we are providing array of banking services right at the doorstep of the customers, who can book it using mobile app/ DSB portal or call centre.
How have been usage patterns of apps, mobile & internet banking, digital payments at the bank?
We have taken a number of initiatives to offer banking facility to the customers without requiring them to come to the branch. We have strengthened our mobile banking application (UCO m-Banking Plus) by providing additional features like facility to open PPF account, Sukanya Samridhi account, to apply for loans – home, car, etc. We have already introduced cardless withdrawal facility using mobile banking U-Cash. Payments using QR code scan are also introduced for contactless shopping experience. Customers can generate virtual cards using same mobile banking app and use that for e-commerce transactions.
In a nutshell, using a single app, a retail customer can manage his entire banking needs right from payment/ fund transfer to investment, loans, UPI, etc. Non-customers can use our UCO Pay Plus app to their saving accounts in real time and also do video KYC. During the pandemic, we have introduced ‘Video Life Certificate’ facility for pensioners through which they were able to submit their life certificate online from the convenience of their homes. This was a big relief for all of them and it was appreciated by all corners including department of financial services (DFS), Government of India.
Percentage of digital (home & mobile channel) transactions to total transactions has increased to 69% as of third quarter from 47% as of the first quarter of the current FY. Adoption percentage of mobile and internet banking among operative non-BSBD SB account customers in the bank has increased to 20% from 15% during the same duration. Adoption percentage of mobile / internet banking among operative non-BSBD SB account customers in transaction intensive branches the bank customers in transaction intensive branches of the bank is up from 12% in the first 3 months to 16% in the first 9 months of the current FY.
How much business has been garnered online by the bank in the current FY? How have you brought business correspondents and agents into the fold of your digital strategy?
Digital banking has both tangible and intangible benefits in terms of reduction of cost of delivery of service, improvement in customer satisfaction, improvised compliance, etc. We have deployed more than 3000 ATMs, cash recyclers and self-service banking kiosks in addition to 10,000 PoS devices and 3500 business correspondents with micro-ATM devices for providing real time transaction facility in the remotest villages of the country. With an active card base of around 10 million and 3.2 million m-banking customers, our customer induced digital transaction share is approximately 70%. There is a visible shift of customers from using the digital platform for business transaction to gradually shifting towards non-financial banking services like opening of account, investment in fixed deposit, recurring deposit, PPF account, application for advances, etc, through online mode.
In the payment acquiring ecosystem, we have more than 150 merchants live on our fee collection module. The bank is not only garnering business in the form of interchange income and commission but also through expanding its float in the business accounts. Online and digital initiatives have also helped us to retain our existing customers who were in requirement of different digital solutions for their business to survive during the covid situation and also acquired new customers on basis of the merchant on-boarding digital products.
Who are your main tech vendors and what are their services? Give details about data centre, networking hardware, size of your IT team and training provided to upgrade the skill set of staff members. What is the capex and opex for digital initiatives by your bank?
Our core banking solution is Finacle from Infosys. We have engaged leading technology service providers to deploy state of the art, safe and secure technology solutions. It would not be prudent to discuss details of our data center, networking and hardware sizing, but at the same time I can tell you that bank has 4 data centers, 2 at Bangalore in hosted model for primary and near site and 2 at Kolkata in our own building working as primary and DR site. Our hardware sizing and networking solution is scalable enough to take care of our expansion plan in the next decade. We have a robust wide area network setup on MPLS platform with multiple service providers’ link to have redundancy of network link at every level, covering all the branches and offices (more than 3300) on pan India basis. The core network is built with devices from all leading network and security hardware OEMs – Cisco, HP, Checkpoint, Imperva, Fire-eye, Cyber Ark, etc.
The deployment of solutions is both on capex and opex models subject to criticality of the solution and business model. Recently, we have changed our CTS solution from capex to opex. Thus, it is a constant process which depends on various factors. We are now even going for a cloud-based solution deployment for non-critical projects.
We have been managing our CBS and DC maintenance through an in-house team. Our internal software development team is continuously developing new software solutions and modules. As part of capacity building, we are imparting training to our staff through premier institutes like IDRBT, NIBM, BIRD, IIM, etc. At the same time our e-learning platform is providing on-the-go training to our staff members.
How strong is the bank’s presence on social media? What online marketing efforts have been undertaken for the current FY?
We have been active on social media platforms through our official handles in Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & LinkedIn. We are engaging social media users with different types of awareness posts like interest rate updation, digital product initiatives for merchants & retail customers, asset & liability product features and cyber security measures, covid protocol/ best practices, etc on a regular basis. We are interacting with more than 50 social media users on daily basis on queries, feedbacks or grievances. As of now, we have a Facebook customer review rating of 4.2/5.
We have a lead management system in place. In the current FY, we have mainly focused on organic posts and lead generation from social media. The link for garnering leads is posted in social media for interested or prospective customers. The bank reaches the customers who fill up the details and converts the leads into prospects.
Banking has seen a major shift from manual to digital channels in the last few years. Now people are more aware of the uses and advantages of using debit cards and mobile banking. These initiatives have also helped our economy to march towards a less cash mode.
What kind of promotional initiatives are planned for the next FY? To what extent technology will be an enabler in the foreseeable future for your bank?
We are also going to enter the virtual market with our products and offer better convenience and experience to our prospective customers. In the next FY, we will extensively work towards brand and performance campaigns. Covid and post covid situation has also added up towards digital banking like introduction of video KYC, applying of virtual debit cards through mobile banking. We have always been a pioneer in digital banking initiatives in the banking industry with our award-winning mobile applications. Hence, technology has enabled us to regain and retain our brand as a digital friendly bank and with the further advancement and adoption of technology, we will definitely work towards more digitization.
How have you gained by deploying analytics to increase business? How is technology put to use for customer relationship management (CRM)? What are you doing to enhance customer experience?
Data analytics is a very important tool in banking industry, with vast structured and unstructured data generated by many devices in various platforms can provide stupendous insight. With banking products becoming increasingly commoditized, analytics can help banks differentiate themselves and gain a competitive edge.
Banks in the past have been reluctant to employ analytical tools due to legacy data and its accuracy. In line with other public sector banks, we use analytics at a very limited level. But with regular data cleaning and advanced tools in data analytics, we may employ analytical tools in full use in the near future.
Analytics can provide banks like ours with more marketing muscle. Functional areas like risk, compliance, fraud, NPA monitoring, and calculating value at risk can benefit greatly from analytics to ensure optimal performance, and in order to take crucial decisions where timing is very important. The use of analytics can help banks like ours differentiate themselves and remain competitive in the future. Solutions like ‘Next Best Offer’ (the use of predictive analytics to identify the products or services that customers are most likely to be interested in for their next purchase) and locational intelligence already provide the said data.
How is your bank involved in partnering, investing and supporting fintechs and startups?
We have tie-ups with some of the leading fintechs for introducing best of technology solutions, innovative business reengineering ideas and last mile delivery products; with an overall target of enhanced customer convenience, improving business processes, proper compliance and of course optimization of cost of delivery. Services being availed through these fintechs are primarily related to fetching outside world reports on topics like GST, financial statements, analysis of balance sheets, analysis of bank statements, CIBIL report, PAN verification, business correspondent services etc.
In order to manage this journey of onboarding fintech companies and to choose the worthy projects out of number of startups, we have adopted a board approved fintech policy, which covers the entire gamut. We are quite optimistic that our tie-ups with suitable partners will help us to achieve both economy of scale and economy of scope at the same time.
In the post covid- scenario, what are your targets and plans for IT, digital initiatives in the current FY and what is planned for the next FY?
We are in the process of upgrading our core banking solution from Finacle 7.x to Finacle 10.x. This will help us to strengthen our core capabilities and technical platform. Finacle 10.x is built around API support system which opens up the door to limitless API based integration. At the same time, we are upgrading our e-banking solution platform, which shall be our step towards creating a digital hub. We target to provide channel agnostic, platform agnostic and device agnostic banking experience to our customers. In seriatim, our endeavour is to introduce new loan originating system, which will ultimately provide an end-to-end solution to the customers to apply, track and avail credit within defined turn around time as per their needs from anywhere, anytime. We understand that in the current era of generation Y, where millennials are the largest customer base, banking anywhere and anytime is the key towards successful customer engagement. In this direction, we are going to bring ‘banking on the go’ through our innovative kiosk solution. Recently, we have launched ‘Green Channel Kiosk Banking Solution’, wherein customers can avail self-service within the branch premise as well. Further, we have to integrate with social media platforms and increase our footprint on these growing channels to tap the customers and also to provide banking wherever they want. Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are the technologies which are going to be the driving force for change of face of banking in coming years.
While the list is endless, our vision is clear. To offer convenient, cost effective, consumer friendly technology solutions.
