SBI SHELVES PLAN TO HIVE OFF YONO APP
MUMBAI: State Bank of India (SBI) has shelved plans to hive off its super app Yono, and will instead build the app into a wider platform that can be used by rival lenders in addition to adding more capabilities to it.
“The potential for monetisation is there, but the timeline for monetization is not. Yono has to be extended in a manner that goes beyond SBI,” a senior banker aware of the matter said. “We will create a platform for Yono, which will be integrated with regional rural banks or cooperative banks. If they want to use it, they can. That is the larger objective of Yono. We call it the plat-formisation of Yono. That’s a little away.”
Last year, SBI’S former chairman, Rajnish Kumar, said the bank was planning to separate the digital platform and had ascribed a $40 billion valuation for the Yono platform.
Under current SBI chairman Dinesh Kumar Khara, the plan is to turn the app into a platform where all banks, including SBI, can offer their products and services.
The idea is that the product will be more valuable to investors once the app is fully built out as a platform.
Yono has helped SBI expand its retail lending and depositor base during the pandemic. The app has seen its user base nearly double to 32 million at the end of December 2020 from 17 million a year ago.
SBI disbursed ₹15,996 crore worth of personal loans through more than 1 million Yono loan accounts between April and December 2020.
After the success of personal loans, the bank is now looking to enhance its retail product portfolio by making it easy for home loan customers to complete the entire process online.
SBI is also looking to go big with its multi-lingual Yono Krishi platform, which is offering services such as Yono Khata, Yono Bachat, Yono Mitra and Yono Mandi to its farm customers.