IDBI BANK: Focus on digital technologies

IDBI Bank, which offers personalised banking and financial solutions to clients in the retail and corporate banking arena, set up its overseas branch in Dubai a few years ago. It now has plans to open representative offices in other parts of the globe to encash on emerging global opportunities.
The youngest, new generation, public sector universal bank, rides on a cutting edge core banking Information Technology platform. This enables it to offer personalised banking and financial solutions to its clients. The bank had an aggregate balance sheet size of Rs3.74 trillion and total business of Rs4.81 trillion as on March 31, 2016.
"Our Dubai offshore branch is faring well," says Mythili Balasubramanian, Executive Director of the bank. According to her, all banks in India are rapidly adapting digital technologies, which would ultimately ensure better services.
"Many pundits say that wallets and ATMs will become redundant as the Unified Payments System becomes popular," notes Balasubramanian. "A banker cannot rest in peace, saying this is my model, as models keep undergoing change by the hour."
She feels that small and medium enterprises in India need to move into the formal system. "Banks find it difficult to lend to them as their accounting is still not on a 100 per cent formal basis," explains Balasubramanian. "And with banks reluctant to meet all their fund requirements, many are going to the unorganised sector and paying hefty interest rates."
Referring to the recent demonetisation of Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes, she says from a banker's perspective, the immediate impact is that there is a lot more money in bank accounts. "It raises the amount of liquidity of banks in one shot." The money may continue to be with banks.
According to her, banks will continue to have liquidity and would be able to ramp up advances and maintain the overall position, resulting in virtually no impact on the results at the end of the fiscal. "And if the reduction in business is to be nullified or broadly countered because of vibrant business in the fourth quarter that would be positive. We need to wait," says the senior banker.