Startups motivated banks to digitize fast

—RITESH PAI, Senior President & Country Head, Digital Banking, YES Bank

How is digitization changing the banking space in India?

Digitization is one of the key elements which enable the banks with traditional processes to compete and meet the customer expectations in this eCom/mCommerce universe. Various initiatives taken up in this space has helped banks to access data across geographies almost near real time and hence we can see improved efficiencies and also reduced errors as there is no loss of information. As a result of digitization, banks now can access customer information at finger tips and revert to the customers on various queries in the matter of seconds which meant reduced TATs and increase customer delight.

How do you see the challenges posed by startups which are competing with banks through their wallet apps?

Startups are not really competition. Startups have definitely motivated banks to move fast on the technology space to offer convenience to the customers. At YES BANK, we actually saw this as an opportunity and started to partner with them. Startups can bring in agility and innovation, banks can bring in governance and offer regulatory support along with robust payment system infrastructure and hence it showed us a clear way that combining our strengths is the best way to go to market and offer services.