“Next Generation Banking Is All About Innovation, And More Innovation”

Indian banking is not going to be the same as convergence of technologies on mobile devices becomes the new mantra and banks increasingly turn ‘digital banks’ rather than just pure play banks. Banks and financial institutions have to lead the way in adopting digital technologies, and even take cues from social media, use big data and analytics and shift the definition of banking experience for the masses.  

Banks need to innovate at a continuous pace if they are to stay ahead of customer expectations. “Innovate, innovate, innovate, because customer expectations and experiences are changing faster than technology itself,” said P C Panigrahi, General Manager, Financial Inclusion Department, Union Bank of India, while speaking at the BW BFSI CXO Summit. 

With newer technologies and capabilities and with the advent of artificial intelligence, technology will be capable of adding more functions. 

Rajnish Khare, head-digital transformation, Social Business and New Media and Mobility Banking, HDFC Bank stressed that banks have to turn more technology savvy. “Everybody is open to technology changes. The question is who can do it better. All financial companies are experimenting with next generation technologies. Starting from blockchain, etc, The linkster generation, born after 2002, has started the generation on mobile."

Shiv Kumar Bhasin, chief technology officer, SBI: “In 6-12 months, you will see many banks are becoming mobile app only banks. If you are going for digital banks and branchless, expectation of the customer will always be that it should omni-channel.”

New age banking such as gesture based banking which helps make payments just by shaking your mobile may be the way digital banking is moving. In fact, customer expectations such as pre-approved applications will be the way forward populated with data already available with the banks. 

Avadhesh Chaturvedi, Director, Brands & Agencies, IMIMobile said: “Banking is only going mobile. If a customer is comfortable or his history shows engaging on facebook, why not use your communication on facebook only. So if I were to sum it up, next generation banking is seeing a paradigm shift. It’s more of reaching out to the customer where he is available.” 

Of course, as technology changes, banks and customers have to increasingly take care of security concerns. Lalit Popli, Head IT, ICICI Prudential, noted that as Indians we are less concerned about the security of our information. “When it comes to our computers, we don’t buy authorised software. That itself opens up your data to security breaches. We have seen with wannacry, how many small sectors, have been affected by it.”

Popli added that information is now the new gold, and we have to be very careful with what we are doing with it.