According to M.G. Ajayan, EVP-Operations, ESAF Small Finance Bank, the company has been using state-of-the-art technology in all its operations from the very beginning.
“We have adopted assisted digital onboarding of customers from day one. We started using a loan origination system from the very inception, for Microfinance and Retail lending. Over 85% of the Asset portfolio comprises Microfinance with a customer base of over 30 Lakhs. We have been able to achieve these numbers mainly on account of adoption of modern, apt technology platforms,” he maintained.
The company is evaluating the possibilities of leveraging AI/ML for a number of things.
“Generally speaking, we’ve realized that the introduction of AI/ML in Chatbots will filter most of the routine and simple calls heading to the FTE agents in an inbound contact center.”
This will help save precious man hours, which can be utilized to solve bigger and costlier problems where the human element is required the most.
Ajayan believes that multiple data sources’ availability helps cross-functional departments create a strong storyline that can be validated. So a collaborative approach is very vital for the organization to put its data to better business use and reap the benefits.
For instance, using transaction data containing card transactions on a medical store and hospitals give an option for the frontline team to pitch a Health policy or suggest a loan for a medical emergency. The number of transactions and volume along with the already available PI data, credit score etc helps to sharply focus delivery of the right service at the right time to the right customer.
“A good amount of upselling and cross selling happens resulting in creation of sticky loyal customers.”
The lender has selected Oracle’s Autonomous Data Warehouse (ADW) and Analytics cloud services.
With this, ESAF is able to create a segmented view of the database to glean insights that are sought by users within and outside the bank.
“We could seamlessly integrate the Oracle Analytical dashboard views in our internal customized application with single sign-on access. Further, the version upgrade benefits are automatic. The added advantage of paying as and when, and for only what we use, have also helped us realize superior cloud economics,” said Ajayan.
From an insight to decision cycle time perspective, Ajayan’s team has been helping stakeholders to access core business analytics on a t+1 basis.
“We’ll also look to offer mid-day business positions/status in terms of collections in the field. Further, we are in the process of integrating industry data in order to derive a more realistic impact of market level customer behavior, and accordingly look to fine-tune our business targets and underlying products and services,” he added.
Ajayan also believes that cloud has immense potential to increase operational efficiencies and aid business growth. While some of ESAF’s solutions are already cloud-hosted, cloud will be forming a key part of its future strategic IT decisions.
