“My Product Is My Biggest Achievement”

Jaya Vaidhyanathan, the CEO of BCT Digital, wears many professional hats. She is one of two external directors on the global board of PwC, a member of their Risk Committee and one of two independent directors on the board of PwC India. Vaidhyanathan also serves as an independent director on the boards of UTI Asset Management Company and IndiGrid and previously served on the board of Altran (Capgemini Engineering).

Vaidhyanathan joined Bahwan CyberTek (BCT) in 2014, kick-starting their fintech initiatives and risk management product portfolio, today known as rt360. She led the team that was the first in India to develop a tech-enabled early warning system (EWS) for detecting potential non-performing assets (NPAs).

The idea for starting the risk management business was born from the huge banking sector NPA crisis in India during 2015-16. As NPAs sharply rose from 4.62 per cent to 7.79 per cent during that period, the trust in the Indian banking system was truly shaken. Vaidhyanathan realised that while the market was inundated by operations and market risk management products, credit risk remained decidedly underserved. She is one of the few fintech CEOs to have chosen one of the most complex problem to tackle using technology.

The Growth Story

Under Vaidhyanathan’s leadership, BCT Digital diversified from the original business of assessing credit risk to managing the entire spectrum of risk, including Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), governance risk and compliance (GRC), model risk, and liquidity risk. Having diversified into cleantech, BCT Digital now offers products/services that work to improve the long-term health of the environment. ESG is a new focus area for BCT Digital. The products harness newer technologies such as Generative AI, predictive analytics, and big data, to lend more accountability and predictability to the banking system.

BCT Digital’s current and way forward strategy is to tread through the mandates and compliances proposed by global regulators in the credit monitoring as well as ESG space. 

Views On Financial Institutions

While working with financial institutions, Vaidhyanathan realised that they are highly regulated institutions. “Healthcare and financial services are like the top regulated industries and there is a lot of oversight because financial institutions are the custodians of trust of the common person,” she says. So there's a lot of background as to why financial institutions are a priority for regulators. According to her, the regulators are not content with looking at forensic analyses of what went wrong. “The lens is moving towards things that are monitored and therefore banks are partnering with a lot of fintechs in that journey and that is where companies like BCT Digital have a key contribution to make,” she says.

Vaidhyanathan believes that in any business today people are the greatest asset. She considers talent as a layer to be built that is based on articulating a clear vision or dream and converting that dream into reality and finally into a scalable product.

Many Achievements

Under Vaidhyanathan’s stewardship, there are several key achievements that facilitated overall growth along with the success metrics. Recently, the Reserve Bank of India selected BCT Digital’s product rt360 for the 'test phase' under the regulatory sandbox for the theme ‘Prevention and Mitigation of Financial Frauds'.

Chartis Research has ranked BCT Digital for two consecutive years among the top 100 risktech companies in the world in its RiskTech100 2022 & 2023 report, recognising its capabilities. BCT Digital has also been recognised as a category leader in model risk management, credit analytics, governance, risk and compliance management and internal audit by Chartis Research. 

Vaidhyanathan feels that her product has been her biggest achievement. “The biggest achievement, because it was the greatest challenge and from the greatest challenge comes your biggest achievement.” The first product, the rt360 Early Warning System, built to track and proactively address NPAs in banks, saves $500 million per bank per year.

Awards And Accolades

Vaidhyanathan has a host of awards under her kitty. These include Fintech Woman Leader of the Year 2022 by Businessworld Festival of Fintech, Top 50 Leaders in Technology of 2022 by Women We Admire, India’s Most Trusted CEO Award 2022 by WCRC (World Consulting Research Corporation), Fintech Futures Tech Leadership Award, Banking Tech awards 2020 and the 10 Most Influential Women in Technology 2020 by Analytics Insights Magazine.