Our digital transactions have gone as high as 67 pc now: SBI Chairman

Mumbai: The country’s largest lender State Bank of India has seen a perceptible increase in the number transactions happening at its multiple digital channels, with the percentage moving from 60 per cent in the pre-pandemic period to 67 per cent currently, Chairman Dinesh Khara said.

The rise in the number of digital transactions at the bank was largely driven by pick up in e-commerce during the pandemic-induced lockdown, which restricted movement, he said. “When e-commerce picked up, it was actually the digital channels we are offering that got wider currency and acceptability. That is one of the reasons our digital transactions have gone as high as 67 per cent now.

“I think it is a phenomenal number, considering the fact that we are a bank which is serving all kinds of customers – digitally savvy and not digitally savvy,” Khara told PTI in an interaction. He said the ecosystem such as round the clock availability of Real Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) and National Electronic Fund Transfer (NEFT), which got created recently, also helped the bank in scaling up its digital transactions.

“I think part of it (higher digital transactions) is coming from the ecosystem and a part of it has come from the bank’s own effort,” he noted. The lender’s digital lending platform – Yono (You Only Need One App) – has achieved significant growth during the current financial year.

At present, there are 35 million registered users of Yono and the bank is opening over 35,000-40,000 savings accounts per day with the help of the mobile app, he said. During the current financial year, around Rs 16,000 crore worth of pre-approved personal loans (PAPL) have been disbursed to 12.82 lakh customers through Yono, Khara said.

While 59,000 crore car loans aggregating to around Rs 4,000 crore were sanctioned, the bank could generate 15,000 home loan leads worth Rs 4,000 crore with the help of Yono, he added.

The platform also helps in distributing products of the bank’s subsidiaries including SBI Life Insurance, SBI General Insurance and SBI Card and SBI Mutual Fund. So far in this fiscal, close to 25 lakh personal accident policies and seven lakh life insurance policies have been issued using the Yono platform, Khara said.