Impact of Digital Transformation of Retail Banking in Today's Post-Covid Times

Asia Business Outlook recently got a chance to interact with Kanishk, wherein he shares is insights on various aspects pertaining to today’s retail banking space. Below are the excerpts of the exclusive interview –

Kanishk Upadhyay, with over two decades of experience in the banking & finance space, Kanishk joined Techcombank in 2020, prior to which he has handled key financial functions across various companies such as United Breweries, Dabur India, Kansai Nerolac Paints, HDFC Bank and Standard Chartered Bank. He is also an active angel investor and has invested in 10+ startups across fintech, edtech, logistics, EV, and many other niche tech verticals.

What are your thoughts on the current retail banking scenario? Also, tell us the role of regulation and innovation in retail banking today.

Witnessing a constant increase, the global population is expected to soon hit the eight billion mark. Being a people-centric business, retail banking will thus continue to exhibit significant growth rate in the coming years as well. In developing countries of South-East Asia, South Asia and Africa, there is a massive number of under banked population. However, latest technologies that have emerged over the past decade have enabled a large portion of this population to be introduced into the banking space. This has resulted in a large part of lower class population coming getting benefitted immensely by being included in the financial bracket. Also, even the poor people are able to now open wallets and bank accounts, which has enabled them to gain access to banking services and credit, and thus be a part of the country’s economy. This way, retail banking has been a major contributor in bringing the lower class population of the society under the banking umbrella and improve their households.

Most of the above mentioned aspects have been made possible because of the way regulators have helped under banked people across all industries to be included into the banking ecosystem. A lot of these regulatory requirements have helped shape the future of banking, especially for the people who had no access to banking services earlier due to high fees and complicated processes. On the other hand, regulations have played a key role in safeguarding the banking function.

How have you helped your company achieve exponential business outcome through digital transformation?

My stint with Techcombank began three years ago have since then been engaged in a variety of digital transformation projects. Over the years, we have launched many brand new digital platforms in terms of mobile banking for retail, mobile banking for businesses and many others. Since almost 90 percent of transactions today are happening on the digital platform, we revamped all pour payment products and thus were able to create credit origination and credit onboarding digital journeys for our customers. This resulted in an increased number of customers opting for digital instead of manual banking processes and getting access to almost all banking services at the comfort of their homes, at their convenient time.

As an experienced banking professional, what are your strategies to balance between digital and physical channels in retail banking?

It is very much important for organizations to realize that physical banking will never cease to exist. Now, even the simplest transactions such as bill payments, purchases and money transfers are happening via digital medium, and this trend will continue over many more years to come. Going forward, we will see more of such efficient embedded journeys coming into fore, where customer need not visit the bank or even the banking mobile app – it is seamless, continuing and embedded process. However, since customers prefer talking to people and discuss their financial needs & aspirations, I feel the need for human intervention during face-to-face transactions will increase more in the days to come. While higher value interactions will all be made through direct human meetings and consultation, smaller value interactions will go the digital way. To balance between physical and digital retail banking, it is very much important for business to forge new technology partnerships and alliances to have the right KPIs and SDKs in place.

"A large number of ideas and concepts which were till then pushed aside by the investors suddenly garnered widespread interest and funding from the investor community."

What is your opinion on the impact of digital skills gap on the success of digital banking transformation? 

Currently, the ambition of a lot of organizations in the banking sector is very high and there might be minor gaps in the talent onboarding process. This is because looking for new talent is not always the answer. Digital is completely disrupting the way businesses usually function, it is very important for all BFSIs to upskill and retrain their existing workforce on all the necessary verticals to reap maximum benefits of being a digital-first organization. Also, yet another major factor that is very much necessary for a successful digital transformation is the change in mindset & thinking of every member across the organization.

Explain the impact of the covid-19 epidemic on retail banking market orientation and how technology is altering the banking business.

The Covid-19 pandemic acted as one of the biggest enablers for digital transformation across almost all industries. Like the well-known saying, “Necessity is the Mother of All Innovations”. According to a study, 40 percent of the total population who made digital transactions during the pandemic did so for the first time in their lives. A large number of ideas and concepts which were till then pushed aside by the investors suddenly garnered widespread interest and funding from the investor community. However, in the post-pandemic times, organizations must now ensure that their ongoing digital transformation journeys stay in tandem with the customers’ demands.