Express Computer (Vol.27, No.11) November, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

edit

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES SET TO ALTER THE FACE OF BANKING T

MOST BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS ARE HEDGING THEIR BETS ON A COMPREHENSIVE DIGITAL STRATEGY AS THEIR FUTURE DEPENDS ON IT

he Indian BFSI sector is in the midst of a major tectonic technology shift that presents both opportunities and challenges to its players. Competition is not only coming from traditional rivals, but also born in the cloud startups. Non banking players like India Post, who have recently acquired banking licenses, are also set to challenge existing players.

Most banking and financial service providers are hence hedging their bets on a comprehensive digital strategy as their future depends on it. Take for instance, India's largest bank, the State Bank of India (SBI), which wants to become one of the top ten digital banks in the world in the next two years. Just like a startup, the bank is conducting hackathons, has published its APIs for fintech companies to build apps, and has gone on an overdrive with respect to its mobile strategy. Banks have realized that customer service is the true currency, and have made every effort to enhance customer satisfaction. SBI, for instance, has a 'No Queue’ app on mobile, which enables customers to book a virtual queue ticket, and avoiding waiting in the queue at the branch.

Similarly, HDFC Bank, has innovated by enabling customers to get loans within seconds, thanks to its algorithms which can quickly decipher the credit worthiness of the customer. Federal Bank allows customers to open accounts using selfies - a move clearly aimed at attracting the millennial generation. In a sign of the times, DBS Bank, has unveiled India’s first mobile-only bank, called digibank. There is no paper work involved, and account opening and verification can be done using Aadhaar.

As the competition has intensified, banks are using innovative methods to reach out to the masses. A case in point is Yes Bank, which has created Yes Money terminals, to cater to migrants who do not want a savings account, but just a quicker way of remitting money to their family members. DCB Bank has launched ATMs which can do not need a card, but just your fingerprint and your Aadhaar number to dispense cash.

Axis Bank has rolled out an augmented reality feature on its mobile app that enables users of the mobile app to conveniently locate and navigate to the nearest Axis Bank ATMs or branches. In the insurance sector, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has launched a telematics-based offering, which incentivizes customers for good driving habits.

As the above examples show, the Indian BFSI sector is in the midst of a huge digital transformation. The goal of every provider is the same - improve engagement and consequently, aim for a bigger share of the wallet. This is an exciting time for India, as the combination of the demography, the ecosystem (Aadhaar, UPI), and the immense opportunity to bring in a large part of the unbanked population to the mainstream, is unique to India. srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2016

3

contents 8

SBI: THE RISE OFTHE DIGITALBANK India’s largest bank, State Bank of India, has shown the world how large organizations can become agile and more efficient by adopting digital strategies

feature

news analysis 48

STERLITE TECHNOLOGIES SEEKS TO FLY HIGH WITH END TO END SOLUTIONS STRATEGY 55

HOW INDIA CAN ACCELERATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WITH BLOCKCHAIN Blockchain is rightly being described as a ‘new internet’ that can serve as the foundation for a new wave of applications in areas as diverse as finance to real estate to e-commerce and even government services

DHFL USES DESIGN THINKING TO STEER INNOVATION

38 4

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

interviews

opinion 14

16

ICICI BANK: USING DIGITAL INITIATIVES TO CHANGE CLASSIC BANKING PROCESSES

HDFC BANK: ATOUCH OFDIGITALIN EVERYPROCESS

32

FUTURE GENERALI INDIA INSURANCE :

26

DIGITALENHANCES CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

36

PWC INDIA:

P SITARAM Executive Director, IDBI Bank

DIGITALINNOVATION IN BANKING

34

18

20

22

AXIS BANK: DIGITALINITIATIVES ENTWINED WITH THE CUSTOMER’S LIFE

YES BANK: CHALLENGING CONVENTIONAL PARADIGMS WITH DIGITALSOLUTIONS

KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK:

43

BHARTI AXALIFE: EMBEDDED DIGITAL STRATEGY

46

50

HPE INDIA: REDEFINING IT CONFIDENCE: 3 STEPS TO TRANSFORMATION

INDUSIND BANK:

BAJAJ ALLIANZLIFE: FOCUSING ON DIGITAL TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

30

EXPRESS COMPUTER

44

THOMAS KEENAN

ACCELERATING ON THE DIGITALHIGHWAY

Professor at University of Calgary

56 52

DIGITALINITIATIVES ARE JUSTAN ILLUSION WITHOUTASTURDYFOUNDATION

28

President & CIO, Edelweiss Financial Services

HDFC LIFE:

ADIGITALPIONEER

24

KALPANA MANIAR

HDFC LIFE: BUILDING THE BASE FOR LONG TERM SECURITY

BHASKAR BAKTHAVATSALU Managing Director, Check Point, India & SAARC

54

INDIABULLS HOUSING FINANCE:

58

USING DIGITALFOR ENHANCING CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE

AEGON LIFE INSURANCE: USING DIGITALTO BE ATTHE FOREFRONT OFCUSTOMER INTERACTION

DR SRIHARSHAAACHAR Chief People Officer, Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company Limited.

NOVEMBER, 2016

5

Vol 27. No. 11. November, 2016 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Sr Vice President - BPD Neil Viegas Editor Srikanth RP* Delhi Mohd Ujaley, Ankush Kumar, Rashi Varshney Mumbai Jasmine Desai, Abhishek Raval DESIGN National Design Editor Bivash Barua Asst. Art Director Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rekha Bisht Layout Vinayak Mestry, Rajesh Jadhav Photo Editor Sandeep Patil MARKETING Regional Heads Harit Mohanty - West and East Prabhas Jha - North Marketing Team Shankar Adaviyar Ranabir Das Ajanta Sengupta Amit Tiwari Mathen Mathew Navneet Negi Circulation Mohan Varadkar Scheduling Ashish Anchan PRODUCTION General Manager B R Tipnis Manager Bhadresh Valia

MUMBAI Shankar Adaviyar, Ranabir Das The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 2nd Floor, Express Tower, Nariman Point Mumbai- 400 021 Board line: 022- 67440000 Ext. 527 Mobile: +91 9323998881 Email Id: shankar.adaviyar@expressindia.com Ranabir Das Mobile No. +91 9820097606 Email: Ranabir.das@expressindia.com Branch Offices NEW DELHI Prabhas Jha, Navneet Negi The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India.

Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270 Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email id: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com Navneet Negi Mobile No. +918800523285 Email: navneet.negi@expressindia.com CHENNAI Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 8th Floor, East Wing, Sreyas Chamiers Towers New No.37/26 ( Old No.23 & 24/26) Chamiers Road, Teynampet, Chennai - 600 018 Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com BANGALORE Amit Kumar Tiwari The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 502, 5th Floor, Devatha Plaza, Residency road, Bangalore- 560025 Mobile No. +91 8095502597 Email: amit.tiwari@expressindia.com HYDERABAD Amit Kumar Tiwari The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division 6-3-885/7/B, Ground Floor, VV Mansion, Somaji Guda, Hyderabad – 500 082 Mobile No. +91 8095502597 Email: amit.tiwari@expressindia.com

KOLKATA Ajanta Sengupta The Indian Express (P) Ltd.. Business Publication Division, JL No. 29&30, NH-6, Mouza- Prasastha & Ankurhati, Vill & PO- Ankurhati, P.S.- Domjur (Nr. Ankurhati Check Bus Stop), Dist. Howrah- 711 409 Mobile: +91 9831182580 Email id: ajanta.sengupta@expressindia.com KOCHI Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd., Ground Floor, Sankoorikal Building, Kaloor – Kadavanthra Road, Kaloor, Kochi – 682 017 Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com COIMBATORE Mathen Mathew The Indian Express (P) Ltd. No. 205-B, 2nd Floor, Vivekanand Road, Opp. Rajarathinam Hospital, Ram Nagar, Coimbatore- 641 009, Mobile No. +91 9840826366 Email: mathen.mathew@expressindia.com AHMEDABAD Shankar Adaviyar The Indian Express (P) Ltd. 3rd Floor, Sambhav House, Near Judges Bunglows, Bodakdev, Ahmedabad - 380 015, Mobile: +91 9323998881 Email Id: shankar.adaviyar@expressindia.com BHOPAL Prabhas Jha The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India.

Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270 Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email id: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com JAIPUR Prabhas Jha The Indian Express (P) Ltd. Business Publication Division, Express Buliding, B-1/B Sector 10, Noida 201 301, Dist. Gautam Budh Nagar (U.P.) India.

Board No : 0120 6651 500, Ext:270 Direct No : 0120 665 1270, Fax No : 0120 4367 933 Mobile : 91-9899707440 Email id: prabhas.jha@expressindia.com

IMPORTANT Whilst care is taken prior to acceptance of advertising copy, it is not possible to verify its contents.

The Indian Express (P) Ltd. cannot be held responsible for such contents, nor for any loss or damages incurred as a result of transactions with companies, associations or individuals advertising in its newspapers or publications. We therefore recommend that readers make necessary inquiries before sending any monies or entering into any agreements with advertisers or otherwise acting on an advertisement in any manner whatsoever.

Express Computer® Reg. No. REGD.NO.MCS/066/2015-17, RNI Regn. No. MAHENG/49926/90 Printed for the proprietors, The Indian Express (P) Ltd. by Ms. Vaidehi Thakar at Indigo Press, (India) Pvt. Ltd. Plot No. 1c/716, off Dadoji Konddeo Cross Road, Byculla (E), Mumbai 400027 and Published from Express Towers, 2nd Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021. (Editorial & Administrative Offices: Express Towers, 1st Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021) Editor : Srikanth RP (*Responsible for selection of News under the PRB Act.) Copyright © 2016 The Indian Express (P) Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner, electronic or otherwise, in whole or in part, without prior written permission is prohibited.

6

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2016

Think Fiber Think CommScope Wherever your network is headed, it’s getting there with fiber connectivity.

Nothing else offers the speed and agility your growing network demands—and no one but CommScope delivers the innovative fiber connectivity solutions you need to power the high-speed, high-bandwidth networks of tomorrow.

© 2016 CommScope, Inc. All rights reserved. AD-110637-EN

Visit CommScope.com/ThinkFiber

COVER STORY

India’s largest bank, State Bank of India, has shown the world how large organizations can become agile and more efficient by adopting digital strategies SRIKANTH RP

I

ndia’s largest bank is on an ambitious digital drive, and its actions are fast resembling a startup. Take a look at these initiatives - The bank is conducting hackathons, has published its APIs for fintech companies to leverage and build apps, and has gone on an overdrive with respect to using mobile and cloud platforms. The focus has been on taking customer experience to a different level.

SBI’s CTO, Shiv Kumar Bhasin, sums up the ambition, when he says, “The State Bank of India wants to be one of the top ten digital banks in the world in the next two years.” Given this context, every initiative that the bank has taken, has its roots in a digital strategy. Take for example, the 8

EXPRESS COMPUTER

bank’s focus on simplifying the digital experience. For a significant percentage of branch processes, the bank analyzed that customers can be serviced with lesser number of screens to click. Today, the bank’s basic principle is to ensure that a customer need not click more than four times for any service request to get completed.

The huge focus on customer satisfaction can also be seen from initiatives such as the ‘No Queue’ app on mobile, which enables customers to book a Virtual Queue Ticket (e-Token) for select services at select SBI branches. What’s unique is that customers can generate etokens before reaching the branch, thus

avoiding waiting in the queue at the branch and saving valuable time. The app also conveys the estimated waiting time, number of customers ahead and a map showing the direction to reach the branch.

Customers are also updated about their position in the queue through instant alerts.

Understanding the uniqueness of India Few banks understand India as a country, as well as SBI does. For example, missed calls are a unique phenomenon to India, and the bank has capitalized on this fact, by developing an offering around this trend called ‘Missed Call Banking’. Users NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2016

9

COVER STORY

SBI’s kiosk banking services run on the cloud and has more than 60,000 registered users.

The bank’s digital wallet and SBI Buddy is also deployed on the cloud which has more than 2.5 millionusers only need to give a missed call to predefined mobile numbers and avail of services such as balance enquiry and mini statement.

Understanding that local language is extremely important for quick adoption, the State Bank of India has ensured that its mobile wallet application is available in 13 Indian languages. It is the first bank in India to do so. In parts of India, where network connectivity is extremely poor, the bank has innovated by creating an offline OTP app, where an OTP can be generated in the absence of mobile networks or Wi-Fi.

Transforming branches digitally Despite high usage rates for Internet and mobile channels, it has been found that customers still derive value from branches. Representing and protecting the brand of an organization, providing a physical presence and serving the full range of customer needs, the branch network has always been the heart of a bank’s franchise and revenue generating potential.

Explains Shiv Kumar Bhasin, “Optimizing the channel mix as part of a multi-channel strategy to service and sell to customers is the new reality. On the other hand, customers seek certainty, variety and significance. Therefore, having a ‘connected brand’ becomes an important aspect of maintaining your customer’s attention.”

Keeping the above facts in mind in State Bank of India, the bank led by its 10

EXPRESS COMPUTER

CTO carried out a few disruptive transformations of the branches by optimizing the business processes, digitizing the paper based processes and ensuring digital presence in their day to day usage of paper.

Shiv Kumar Bhasin gives the example of the branch teller application transformation, where the application has been transformed by re-imagining the user interface of branch teller application to provide next generation customer experience. It has cut down the time to serve the customers at the branches by the teller from 30% to 75%.

Another initiative called the SBI Digi Voucher has been undertaken with the intention of cutting down paper-based transactions. For most of the transactions, customer needs to fill-up paper forms or vouchers for cash withdrawals or for cheque or cash deposits.

“To digitize this process and reimagine the customer experience, we created a SBI Digi Voucher mobile application so that customers could fill up virtual vouchers on the mobile app before coming to branch in the comfort of their home or office. Alternatively, if customers donot have a smartphone, they can use the kiosk in the branch to fill up virtual vouchers electronically,” states Shiv Kumar Bhasin.

The bank has also embarked upon an initiative called SBI Scribe, which facilitates digitization of customer acquisition and the account opening process. A customer needs to only fill-up

paper forms on the digital pad, which has customer handwriting recognition capability. This data is then transmitted on a real-time basis to the core banking system. KYC documents are photographed and scanned by the branch staff, and uploaded real-time. This has enhanced the customer experience by a significant percentage, as the customer can walk out of the branch with a fully operational account immediately.

Building the foundation for acceleration SBI understands that speed to roll out new services is critical in the digital age, and has accordingly adopted cloud and network virtualization services in a big way. The bank has built its own private cloud called ‘Meghdoot’. This private cloud now powers multiple business services.

Bhasin explains the significance of cloud to SBI, when he says, “One of the key concerns was the agility because whenever there was a new business launch, the first roadblock used to occur that we did not have the required hardware. The procurement cycle for buying the new hardware was long, which in turn affected the launch of the business service. To address this, we decided build our own internal private cloud. We believed that by building our own cloud, we will be able to bring in a lot of agility and it will bring down the go-live time for a huge number of business services and the applications.”

Today, thanks to the cloud, SBI has cut NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

down 7-8 months of the procurement time.

The bank is now able to provision infrastructure quickly with a faster time to market. Also, the cloud has helped us in addressing some of its peak business requirements. For example, the bank can now do performance testing during peak periods without impacting its production environment. “Today, we are running live applications on the cloud. We have our kiosk banking services running on the cloud which has more than 60,000 registered users and out of them 20,000 concurrent users log in daily. And we have our Digital Wallet and SBI Buddy deployed on the cloud which has got now more than 2.5 million registered users.

Similarly the wealth business which we have launched 9 months back is also running on the private cloud. All these developments we have done in the last 12 to 14 months.” As one can see, the cloud has really brought in a lot of agility for serving the end customers.

The bank also undertook one of the largest network transformations in the world, when it transformed its point to point network to a MPLS cloud-based network, and upgraded its 64 Kbps branch network Internet connection to a 2 Mbps one.

SBI is also one of the first enterprises in India to go in for network virtualization for multiple purposes, by using technology from VMware. Bhasin explains the rationale for going in for network virtualization. Says he, “We want to use the network in the most optimistic manner. Virtual LANs can be setup for various applications and the available bandwidth can be further most optimized and utilized across the applications by sharing the same LAN network. We are getting our digital wallet certified for PCI DSS Compliance and that’s where we are finding the NSX implementation coming handy to us because this is deployed on a shared cloud which is a massive cloud and since it is the NSX technology ring-fencing the wallet application, so the PCI DSS compliance scope becomes this virtual boundary across this application. What I am trying to say, NSX is helping us to go for in a very large cloud. For example, SBI has more than 1,500 VMs while my wallet is consuming only say 25 VMs out of 1,500.

EXPRESS COMPUTER

Understanding the potential of rural India,the bank has announced a new initiative called ‘SBI Digital Villages’.

This initiative aims to help villages to transition into a cashless economy So, we are able to certify our application on this small subset of this infrastructure as well.”

The bank’s private cloud has been enhanced and grown further to host resilient, stable and virtualized branch applications, which will make it one of the largest hosted private clouds deployed by any bank.

Planning for the future The bank is preparing for the future by taking a series of initiatives. For starters, it has started inviting startups to pitch their solutions or products to the bank on specific days of a month. The bank believes that the engagement with startups will help it ride the wave of digital disruption in a faster manner. SBI has also decided to publish some of its APIs for fintech companies. “We have exposed some of our

APIs in a sandbox, and we encourage startups and fintech firms to build applications or create services leveraging our APIs,” says Shiv Kumar Bhasin.

Another innovation is a P2P funds transfer application that allows customers to quickly transfer funds to a third party without beneficiary registration, either through mobile number or email-ID of the beneficiary.

The bank has setup a private cloud for digital channels (for customer facing Internet and Mobile Banking applications), so that it can serve at least 50% of its more than 29 crore debit card customers by 2020 using digital channels.

The bank is also considering deployment of the public cloud for hosting utility, communication and productivity enhancement services for its staff The bank is also dipping its feet into cognitive computing, and is evaluating a number of vendors. The objective is to enhance branch services using artificial intelligence. Bhasin believes that the top ten enquiries about certain products or services can be handled by chatbots, which can only improve over a period of time.

An important part of the strategy is to be present in mediums where its millennial GenY customers are present.

SBI’s Facebook app, called SBI Mingle, allows customers to do a balance enquiry, download mini statements or initiate a funds transfer.

Understanding the potential of rural India, the bank has also announced a new initiative called ‘SBI Digital Villages’. This initiative aims to help villages to transition into a cashless economy, by adopting them. In the first phase, 21 digital villages have already been adopted, and the bank plans to have 100 villages under this initiative by the end of FY 2017.

For a bank of SBI’s size (over 25,000 branches serving over 350 million customers) – even a small percentage of efficiency enabled by technology can have massive implications. The analysis of SBI’s digital transformation is also important, as it shows India’s public sector giants how they can adopt similar strategies and leverage their size and scale, while being as nimble as a startup. srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

11

OPINION MADHIVANAN BALAKRISHNAN ICICI BANK

ICICI BANK:

USING DIGITAL INITIATIVES TO CHANGE CLASSIC BANKING PROCESSES From social media to software bots, ICICI Bank is experimenting with a number of emerging technologies to transform classic banking processes.

Madhivanan Balakrishnan, Chief Technology and Data Officer, ICICI Bank, shares how the bank is accelerating on the digital highway

A

s a bank, we have always used technology as a part of our core proposition. We are always known as a bank that uses technology to bring about greater convenience whether it is in our ATMs or net banking. We do not look at banking in a traditional way, but blend technology as much as possible to deliver end services. Presently, we are exploring and driving initiatives which can help existing processes to be much better.

We are trying to see how digital initiatives can change classic banking

14

EXPRESS COMPUTER

processes like mortgage processing or credit card issuance, thereby making the process much faster, efficient and a very positive experience for customers.

We are also working towards products that are primarily digital in nature such as mobile banking, wallets and biometric driven.

We have various initiatives on the retail side that are targeted for customers. One that comes instantly to mind is Pockets, which is an app that can be used either by customers or noncustomers. This is like a digital bank wherein one can open an account with

us in a few seconds by giving a few details. We open a virtual wallet for the customer first and then he can use it to transact on all e-commerce sites and for banking transactions. He can also do new age services. We have over 5 million downloads for this application. Around 75% of users of this product are new to the bank. They have used this product to start a relationship with the bank.

Our flagship retail application is iMobile, which is an industry kind of application. It has close to 200 features.

Pretty much everything that you can do offline other than collect cash can be NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

done on this. In terms of usage, we benchmark ourselves with both domestic and global banks. The number of times that people log in the app exceeds both the domestic averages and averages in Asia.

One recent initiative is Smartkeys. It enables one to do a simple banking transaction from any other application without launching the banking application. If a customer wants to send some money using Whatsapp, he/she can convert the keyboard into an application and can do the transaction.

It is a very unique feature and we do not know of any other bank doing this.

One has to download iMobile, and certain data is asked while registering.

Through this app, we make sure that the customer is the person using the phone and doing the transaction. One can then pull in its key into any other app and do a transaction without exiting the app. We are also leveraging Host Card Emulation technology which dematerializes the card. Hence, one no longer needs it. One just needs to wave the app in front of a terminal and the transaction gets done.

In operations we almost have 1,000 odd processes run by a huge base of people. Out of these (as on today), we have converted 200 of these processes and converted them through software robotics. It cuts across multiple internal and external systems. It has dramatically improved productivity eliminating repetitiveness from the job.

We hope to move 500 processes by the end of this financial year. We would not want to limit it to operations but go across divisions. There are initiatives targeted at people who work from home especially women employees or new mothers.

How digitization is taking care of employee concerns We have applications which take care of the concerns and at the same time gives dramatic flexibility to the employee. It is a combination of factors like accessing our network on a wider area network (WAN) using video and facial recognition. It is a process of EXPRESS COMPUTER

Our flagship retail application is iMobile, which has close to 200 features. Pretty much everything that you can do offline other than collect cash can be done on this. In terms of usage, we benchmark ourselves with both domestic and global banks multiplicity of different applications from network to software ability to access. Our Intranet applications are made available to them through a thin network. We are using virtualization in a big way so they do not have to store anything at their place. Most of our people who are on field can approve processes online and access it.

We also run a safety application for women called iTravelsafe. It allows women employees to enter the location at the time of leaving the destination, purpose of travel which enables us to track them. Whatever can be used by our customers can be used by employees.

We were the pioneers in opening an account through a tablet more than three years ago. Most of our accounts are opened using a tablet. It is a good example of technology used by the employees but for the customer. Our aspiration is that almost every salesperson uses tablet to facilitate his work.

We also have certain applications specifically targeted for rural segments.

Thus, the entire RIBG focuses on it.

There is another application which drives liability accounts which is called iCapture. It reflects the account origination process. That is a secondary kind of an application.

The entire process of reducing processes from customer standpoint is

getting a much faster response. Today there is a physical process of going and originating a home loan which includes 4-5 steps including someone coming and picking up the documents. For the customer it would remain the same, but internally it is digitized to a great extent. These are examples of digital transformations driven by digitization.

It cuts through the entire outcome process.

We have a concept called Express Home Loans which customers can use to get approval within eight hours. The standard industry turn-around time is of 3-7 days. Ability to check credentials, capability to pay gets much faster with digitization. If the information is accurate, the sanction can be done within one working day. We also have SMS based solutions for customers who do not have access to the Internet.

Accounting ROI in the digitization game We look at ROI for digitization from three perspectives. Firstly, the customer experience in terms of dramatically reduced time taken for transaction and the ability to get things right the first time which hopefully can result in increased business.

Secondly, it should reduce the physical engagement both from the customer and our perspective which directly results into reduction in cost.

This is infrastructure which is created once, and bigger the scale, the better is the ROI. Thirdly, it must be able to open a completely new segment of customers for the bank. Pockets is a good example where 70% are non-ICICI based customers and a good chunk of them are millennials. Thus, I am able to get a very unique set of people that I might not get through physical channels. UPI is also something that we believe in strongly.

We are able to touch 1 lakh UBI handles.

As a platform, it will get in a big chunk of customers irrespective of whichever bank account they hold.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal and Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

15

OPINION NITIN CHUGH HDFC BANK

HDFC BANK:

A TOUCH OF DIGITAL IN EVERY PROCESS Without ease of use, intuitiveness and relevance, no digital initiative can be a success with customers, says Nitin Chugh, Country Head - Digital Banking and Personal Liabilities Products, HDFC Bank

W

e have digitized the entire bank. Any place that you touch, the bank has witnessed digital transformation. It definitely translates to a lot of changes in the processes within the bank and what we launch for our customers. We have been working on digitization for around three years now.

What is mostly visible is the rollout done in the last 18-24 months for our customer facing initiatives. For example, we have completely digitized our loan workflows which make it possible to process a loan in 10 seconds. We have been able to give approvals in a product called Wedrive for car loans where one can walk into a dealership and through bio-metric authentication, one can get loan approval in 15 minutes. Another option is to take instant top-off of the car loan on any other product through Quick money or Quick Paisa which is for two wheelers. Customers can also apply through ATMs where they get a disbursal immediately and withdraw 16

EXPRESS COMPUTER

cash. They can also avail instant loan against fixed deposits or securities. The ten second loan has been one of our pioneering initiatives that no other bank has been able to crack so seamlessly.

In the area of lending, we have covered the most used products by our customers and each one has been digitized. Wherever we cannot do a ten second loan, we have another workflow where approval is given within 10-15 minutes.

The second area touched by digitization is around the payment side with multiple solutions. The payment mechanisms in the country today are either card based, account based or wallet based. We are present in all three of them through different properties. We launched one click payment solution, Chillr for account based payment. We have mVisa and we are also launching UPI soon. There are other payment methods as well coming up wherein one can make the same payment in the same manner, but in a different way. For

example, in Bangalore we are testing Soundwave based payment. We also introduced missed call banking in 2013, largely in the area of banking but it has been extended in the area of payments as well. One can recharge using a missed call which is a first of its kind service.

In the area of banking, all transactions are available on the Internet and mobile. That is where we follow the principle of 'Bank Aapki Muthi Mein". There are lot of small transactions, for example, opening an account is done in five minutes in our branches. Booking a general or life insurance can also be done online. When we went into the category of wearables we introduced an application for AppleWatch. Thus, we are in every single category that makes sense for our customers.

We also launched things like SmartBuy portal which takes into account day-to-day stuff like grocery, shopping, travel, hotel bookings, bus bookings etc. Through the portal, we NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

have aggregated deals from various partners for discounts which are featured on it.

Focus on SMEs We have solutions on SME side as well.

There is a digital portal for SME where all conversations can happen through the portal. To deliver banking services from a financial inclusion perspective to the rural masses in 2013, we launched our missed call banking platform wherein one can do 5-6 transactions just by giving a call on a toll free number.

In 2012, we had come up with a website which was targeted at people who had browser but used feature phones. This year, we have also created a light app which is 1 MB, so just while downloading one needs data, but post that, the data is not required. The missed call banking has been a huge runway success for us.

People with both user feature and smart phones use it frequently. There are varied amount of options available to them to avail services in both assisted or selfservice mode.

When it comes to UPI, it is going to benefit all the banks and especially customers as there will be interoperability of payments which will give them the freedom to use the banks they trust the most. With our positioning as a bank which really understands and emphasizes with customers, we believe we only have to gain from this.

Internal translates to external, When it comes to digitization for internal staff, we look at it in three parts. Thus, first is the bank, second is the employee and third are customers. We make a bank digitally enabled through processes, work flows and the way in which information travels etc. As a starting point a lot of effort is put into ensuring that employees are comfortable using these technologies.

Whenever we have to launch something, we test it on our employees and gauge their response. As we might be offering the same service through multiple channels and platforms, the employees make sure that the customer uses the one which they are most EXPRESS COMPUTER

comfortable with. Lot of training and internal tools are provided to the employees for internal workflow which prepares them for using and communicating it.

We attract a lot of good talent, and since we are expanding, we hire a lot of people. They are very keen to learn and how they can use their own knowledge of digital technologies. It is a combination of the way the organization is structured, how we enable employees and how we intervene through systematic HR learning and development.

Three years ago, we had only 40% of transactions going through the mobile and Internet. As of March last year, we had 71%. At the same time, the total volume of transactions has also gone up.

Thus, 2/3rd of our transactions are going through the Internet and mobile.

Laying the groundwork for the next frontier of digital

Banking transactions will always form a huge chunk of various other transactions as it is done much more regularly and frequently. Something like FD or loan is a one time thing.

The first quarter of last calendar year, we introduced online submission of Form15GH. which is for exemption of tax largely used by senior citizens. We always believed that although they were active on Internet, for this particular transaction, they chose to come to our branches. We witnessed 60-70% of users migrating to this service within three months. We expected that customers would take more time migrating to this. However, they adopted it very quickly. Similarly with missed call banking, within three months we had almost 10 lakh people using it. It is paramount to make these services designed around simplicity, ease of use and intuitiveness. The bank can offer ten different ways of doing one kind of transactions but the customer will use the one which is the simplest to use.

We have done few of the initiatives with the Fintech community. However,

most of them have been done in-house or through a technology partner. For Chillr or Soundwave initiative, we identified lot of Fintech players. It is an ongoing process. And maybe in the future, we will have 30-40% of mix coming from Fintech.

Our digital strategy is a full reflection of our business strategy. It is only about how to change the way one delivers the business strategy rather than changing the business strategy itself. That being the case, I do not foresee why the business model or strategy will change in the future. What will change is the efficiency from what we have already done and how to make it even more relevant and contextual for customers. It will be augmenting our existing capabilities leveraging robotics, AI, process automation, smart work-flows.

As a principle, any technology that can help us deliver a better service, experience, communication, we are experimenting with all those technologies. For example, there is a concept of hyper-localization. Our vision is that can we give the customer a solution or an offer on the call itself based on what the customer has said, what he is planning to do next etc. Can I give the customer some solution or offer which is relevant for next five minutes? This is also where Fintech community will play a role, as a lot of them have cracked how to deliver hyper-localization and some of them we have cracked, so it will be an interesting collaboration. It might not work if the customer feels we are intruding too much into their privacy, but at the other end of the scale it could be wildly successful. You never know how an initiative will or won't work out in the end. However, it is a new concept and we want to give a try.

We have a very strong foundation which we call as First wave of digital.

Now, we are building even finer capabilities and working towards building next frontier of digital banking.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal and Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

17

OPINION AMIT SINGH AXIS BANK

AXIS BANK:

DIGITAL INITIATIVES ENTWINED WITH THE CUSTOMER’S LIFE It is not enough to just let the customer transact with a bank as a bank.

The role of a bank should be to act more of an extension of a customer's lifestyle, says Amit Singh, CIO, Axis Bank

W

e have an amazing initiative going on which is called 'Happy Holidays'. It is a holiday package that a customer gets online while doing banking.

This includes insurance, multi-currency card etc. The idea is to keep on being part of our customer's life. We do not want customers to think of banking as anything separate but as a part of their life.

We have also recently launched IoT related solutions. For instance, in our collaboration with GoQii, we have incorporated a smart chip in our bands, in which the customer does not need to carry a card. One can take that watch and go to a POS terminal and make a payment of upto Rs 2,000. The great part about it 18

EXPRESS COMPUTER

is that we help people become healthier. If one set a goal of around 10,000 steps everyday and achieves it, we give them reward points. We have innovative ways of using banking to be a part of customer's lifestyle. Health is one of that.

We are the first bank to launch an app on the AppleWatch. We have self-enabled kiosks and branches. Customers can transact using the smart assistant. We call it, 'Speed Banking'.

When it comes to internal staff, everything is digitally enabled for all employees. All of them have a mobile app which they can use for instant account opening, issuing the loan etc. All HR related processes are completely mobile enabled like issuing leaves, travel

requests etc. One can track performances, fill-up performance data on the app as well. All our branches are connected in a digital fashion. Every feature and function that they need to do is available on the mobile app.

If there is a connected infrastructure at the back-end like we do, one can then leverage it for omni-channel experience.

For example, if a customer calls the call centre to request a cheque book, one can find the status of its delivery on the mobile app, the Internet or by giving a call. The entire transaction is an omni-channel experience. Every channel will show the same status and one can carry forward the transaction there. Among all different channels that a customer can avail, we are NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

seeing a massive growth in the mobile usage. Mobile banking as a channel is doubling every year in terms of growth.

The augmented reality feature in our mobile banking designed after the Pokemon Go game has been a runaway success. One click bill payment is also very popular. We have one of the fastest account opening process. We have a digitally enabled paperless account opening process.

One of the most popular one is getting a loan Sanctioned, approved, credited and disbursed within seconds.

Customers do not need to go to a branch to do this.

Even for lockers one can go on app and find out which branch has lockers, choose it and make a payment for it.

Another value adding project has been Pratham, which is to re-invent the business process to cut down the number of steps. There are 800 to 900 processes of the bank. The whole idea is to improve it and make it efficient by upto 90-95%.

Earlier, the process which would take days or one day can now be done in minutes or one hour. It was improvement across the board. The idea was to make things paperless, digitize and automate and use technology features like robotics.

We also evaluating block chain and where it can be leveraged. We think that a good use-case for us to use block-chain will be in Forex and trade finance.

EXPRESS COMPUTER

Design Thinking as a seed for innovative solutions

We adopt a hybrid model while designing our solutions. Design is something we control very closely inhouse, although we leverage lot of partners. The last company we worked with was a start-up. We focus on design and user-experience. In one of our initiatives known as 'Thought Factory', we were already working with start-ups, and we thought that we needed to have a formal mechanism of engaging with the whole start-up community. Accordingly, we came up with the idea of setting up an innovation lab, wherein we experiment with new technologies. We are also helping startups by giving them this accelerator platform. They can sit in the

premise in Bangalore and we give them guidance and help them grow their products in three months. Post that, they can make a pitch for investment. We have also tied-up with Amazon for shared hosting space. Start-ups who do not have a working space can sit there. They can also speak to an Amazon architecture partner. As a bank more and more investments are happening on the digital front.

We are extremely strong on social media as well. We are on one of the highest ranks in social engagement channel. The objective is to use it as a mechanism to connect with people and for running our Hackathon. We will also be putting services like Chatbots, AI enabled tools on social media in future.

Design thinking has always been a focus area for us. We have a Design Thinking CoE internally. My whole team is fully trained in it. The next phase of Design Thinking is Zero Distance Learning. We built it last year. The idea is to engage with customers and figure out what they would like us to do. There are 2-3 mechanisms through which we speak with customers. We speak with them when they visit the branch and also in a controlled group. Lot of our new digital initiatives come out of that. Most ideas come out of Design Thinking. At the end of the day we are there to solve customer's problem and these initiatives revolve around that.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal and Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

19

OPINION MADHIVANAN BALAKRISHNAN ICICI BANK

YES BANK:

CHALLENGING CONVENTIONAL PARADIGMS WITH DIGITAL SOLUTIONS Yes Bank has challenged the assumptions and has always thought of doing things in a different way. Not from a rebel or a competitor kind of an approach but purely because the bank has believed in it. Given this context, Ritesh Pai, Sr. President & Country Head – Digital Banking, Yes Bank maps the digital initiatives for his bank, with the opportunities available in the marketplace

D

igital at Yes Bank plays a dual role. At times we have the external face, where we go and acquire customers. At times, we also play the role of an enabler. It’s an horizontal role that cuts across all the business units. For example, tomorrow, if the agri division requires my services, I am more than happy to provide a tablet or a micro-ATM solution, and they in turn, will provide it to their customers. I play the role of an enabler. Typically from an online acquisition perspective, if the credit card acquisitions happen through the online channel, the retail assets are acquired through the online channel.

Very soon, we will also be including the

20

EXPRESS COMPUTER

liabilities piece. These are those business units that benefit from acquiring the customer but the backend initiative, which is driving this, will be the digital channels.

For us, some of the prepaid solutions that we have launched (Edenred, Freecharge, Niyo, Yes Money), have all been revenue generators. They are sustaining the programme on their own.

So, it is paying back what we have invested. Some of the solutions like Taiysis are very nascent - these are around 2-3 months old. So, it will be very early to predict any kind of return. The idea is also that when we talk of translating into value, it need not always

be in the form of monetary revenue. It can also be in the form of some intangible benefits from a mindshare perspective or getting access to cross sell some of my other products, where technically we may not be servicing them but we can still end up doing some third party distribution.

I can safely say that the payment initiatives that we have already begun are generating revenue because these are tangible things. Either it’s a fee based income or a transaction priced income that we are doing. Some other innovations such as our social media app or the bots that we have launched are more of a wow thing, because we become NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

the first in the country to launch some of these initiatives. Secondly, it is also enabling some of my existing business units to leverage these initiatives. It will either offset my customer servicing cost or reduce the operational costs at my branch, which in turn benefits their product P&L.Digital programmes for the internal staffThere are multiple things which are happening. One of the easiest and simple initiative is a statement analyser. For example, today whenever a credit team has to make decisions in absence of any automated method, the relationship manager needs to scan through the bank statement. Typically for a current account statement, there are about 20 pages to look at. One has to enter the figures in Excel and then do the maths. This entire exercise takes about 56 hours when done by two people with a maker-checker arrangement. This was replaced by putting a statement analyser.

The PDF version could be uploaded and the entire statement is done within 15-20 mins including the calculations required.

We have built a lot of workflows. The Niyo thing that we have launched is all on eKYC. The onboarding and customer acquisition is all automated. We have seen a 90% success on some of these customer acquisitions. Tablet related solutions have been rolled out in the agri business. The Business Correspondents (BC) have been given these tablets for all the loan disbursals and collections.

Revamping core IT applications The CRM and analytics piece is underway, which will help in giving us insights around the cross sell, upsell, behavioral and predictive analysis that we need to do. Also, we are replatforming the entire bank. The entire core banking setup is getting changed.

Hopefully, in December 1st week, we should be on a new CBS. A new mobile app will be launched in a couple of weeks time. Our entire Internet banking will be revamped.. In the current scheme of things, it may not help us scale. It will also help us in launching many more digital initiatives in a much more faster way. So, there is a lot of process automation and EXPRESS COMPUTER

workflows which we have built. These may not be visible to the external world, but it will help in bringing in a lot of efficiency in terms of the turnaround times in which the customer gets serviced.

he can do all the transactions that he could have done in office hours. All these initiatives are at various stages some or already implemented or to be done soon.

Moving towards self-service

From a digital perspective, 20% of the innovation is done in-house, while 80% would be in a partnership mode. The nature of partnership varies, either a plug and play like Taisys. In certain cases, it can only be a revenue share like a Freecharge, where we end up issuing a card. But, whatever transactions happen, the revenue is split. In other cases, it could be purely an ASP kind of a model where the bank will pay a per transaction fixed fee irrespective of what the revenues are.

The idea is also to move towards a more self serviced method of processing transactions vis-a-vis assisted ones.

Some of the branches also that we will be launching in the future will be more on the smart or the digital branch concept. The idea is to cut down on the geographical spread of the branch, but there will be a lot of self service devices that will be available for the customer to transact. So, even if the customer is not visiting the branch at branch hours,

Partnership models

NOVEMBER, 2016

21

OPINION DEEPAK SHARMA KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK

KOTAK MAHINDRA BANK:

A DIGITAL PIONEER Deepak Sharma, Chief Digital Officer, Kotak Mahindra Bank, shares information on some of the pioneering digital initiatives launched by his bank

K

otak has played a pioneer’s role in the digital banking space. In March 2014, Kotak launched ‘Jifi’, the first-of-its-kind social bank account that combines the power of social media with conventional banking.

It was also the first bank in the world to offer Hashtag Banking, whereby customers can bank via Twitter. This was followed by ‘Kaypay’ – the world’s first bank agnostic instant funds transfer platform using Facebook and Social Commerce, which integrates social media banking with e-commerce.

In June 2015, Kotak launched ‘Kotak Bharat’, a multi-lingual mobile banking app which requires no internet connectivity. In 2016, to further strengthen its mobile banking features, KMB has become India’s first bank to offer booking of bus tickets on its mobile banking app. This innovation expands KMB’s travel suite on the app, which also includes flight tickets and hotel booking.

Later this year, KMB also announced the

22

EXPRESS COMPUTER

availability of Flipkart’s mobile site in its mobile banking app, which gives the customer a secure in-app shopping environment.

Kotak Mahindra Bank recently announced the launch of ‘Kotak Now’ – India’s first truly digital account opening process on mobile. ‘Kotak Now’ is an endto-end digital process where verification of KYC documents and signature is done via a video call with the bank.

Key digital initiatives Some of our key digital initiatives include: Kotak Bharat App We are India’s first bank to enable funds transfer without Internet connectivity, primarily targeted to benefit customers in the under-banked and un-banked regions, who can access its services in their preferred language.Considering this regulatory framework, the 'inclusive

digital banking' app is primarily targeted to benefit customers in the under-banked and un-banked regions, who can access its services in their preferred language.

Kotak Now ‘Kotak Now’ is India’s first truly digital account opening process on mobile.

‘Kotak Now’ is an end-to-end digital process where verification of KYC documents and signature is done via a video call with the bank. This is a complete end-to-end online account opening experience, without any need of physical interaction or biometric verification. The entire process is 100% paperless. The account opening process is simple, and takes only a few minutes.

Once the Kotak Now app is downloaded, the prospective customer can upload KYC documents (PAN card, and either Aadhar Card or Passport), and the image of the signature. Thereafter, on entering a few personal details, the Customer Relationship Number (CRN) and NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

Account Number is generated. The app automatically selects a branch closest to the customer’s address for correspondence. The account is activated, after a video call with a bank executive. Kotak has played a pioneer’s role in the digital banking space. ‘Kotak Now’ is yet another addition to Kotak’s long list of innovative digital initiatives.

KayPay KayPayis the world’s first bank agnostic payment product for Facebook users to send money to each other in an instant (24*7). For the first time ever, millions of bank account holders can now transfer money to each other at any hour of the day or night, without needing net banking, or knowing various bank account related details of the payee.

KayPay enables over 250 million Indian bank account holders transfer funds to each other instantly by just choosing recipients from their Facebook friends list.KayPay offers a safe and secure platform to transact on the social networking site through a two-level authentication – Facebook user id & password and a One Time Password (OTP). Further, both sender and receiver immediately receive notifications via SMS and on Facebook about the transfer.

Jifi Jifi is first-of-its-kind fully integrated social bank account. Jifi transcends digital banking as we know by seamlessly incorporating social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook with mainstream banking.Jifi customers receive account updates on Twitter as a Direct Message (DM) by simply tweeting to @KotakJifi with predefined hashtags.

The bank’s dedicated Twitter handle @kotaksync will send out these messages, thereby eliminating human intervention and maintaining confidentiality. Jifi is designed for today’s tech-savvy audience to transact in a secure and simple manner without the need to move out of their digital comfort zone.

Designed to fit into the social networking ecosystem, Jifi’s loyalty point EXPRESS COMPUTER

Kotak Mahindra Bank recently announced the launch of ‘Kotak Now’– India’s first truly digital account opening process on mobile.‘Kotak Now’ is an end-to-end digital process where verification of KYC documents and signature is done via a video call with the bank programme encourages high level of interactivity among account holders.

Customers can earn transactional loyalty points for specific banking activities, and social loyalty points for inviting and adding friends to the Jifi network, liking/commenting on Facebook, etc.

Further, each referral can also earn them social loyalty points. These points can be redeemed for offers and can also be transferred to friends who are part of their Jifi network.

In addition to transacting on social media platforms, customers can transact via net banking and Kotak Mobile Banking app. Further, Jifi customers get a free one-year subscription of Kotak MoneyWatch - a 360 degree view of users’ personal finances, which allows them to check their investments online.

Additionally, Kotak offers web and mobile apps and updates them on various offers. Jifi is a zero interest current account with no minimum balance conditions, and can be opened with an initial payment of just Rs. 5,000/-. All balances over Rs. 25,000/- automatically move into term deposits (TD) at applicable interest rates, giving high returns on idle money.

Opening a Jifi account is very simple, triggered by a self-invite by signing up via Facebook or email. Jifi customers have

access to all conventional bank offerings as well: pan-India branch and ATM network, ‘Platinum’ debit card, all India toll free number, Net card & Net banking access etc.

Bus Booking via Kotak Mahindra Bank App To further strengthen its mobile banking features, KMB has become India’s first bank to offer booking of bus tickets on its mobile banking app. Customers can now seamlessly book bus tickets for travel across India at discounted prices, without concerns of transaction failure.

KMB offers secured checkout solution where customers can make payment directly from their bank account or using their credit card. This innovation expands KMB’s travel suite on the app, which also includes flight tickets and hotel booking.

Travel is the largest e/m-commerce segment accounting for over 60% of total transaction volume, and it continues to grow at a fast pace. We are focused on providing seamless travel solutions for customers within our app, thereby reducing transaction failure and offering secured checkout solution. In addition to flight and hotel bookings, customers can now book bus tickets on our mobile banking app at a discounted price. This innovation is in line with our philosophy of providing digital banking solutions that simplify day-to-day life.

Flipkart on Kotak Mahindra Bank’s mobile app The availability of Flipkart’s mobile site in its mobile banking app gives the customer a secure in-app shopping environment. KMB has been expanding the scope of offerings on its mobile banking app, and this move further strengthens its mStore. Shopping on Flipkart via Kotak’s mStore has its advantages. Customers can shop seamlessly and check-out faster with choice of relevant payment options, as billing and delivery details are already available with KMB. Furthermore, in-app shopping reduces transaction failures, and allows them to track cancellations and refunds in the same window.

NOVEMBER, 2016

23

OPINION MADHIVANAN BALAKRISHNAN ICICI BANK

INDUSIND BANK:

DIGITAL INITIATIVES ARE JUST AN ILLUSION WITHOUT A STURDY FOUNDATION Digitization does not happen in a vaccum. A lot of components are required to work seamlessly in tandem with each other. Mridul Sharma, Head-Technology, IndusInd Bank gives a detailed overview of how he enables it in his organization Designing digitization I look at digitization in three stages. The first stage was when banking moved from manual to digital systems. Second stage was having basic transaction systems computerized and lot of processes were digitized. We have one of the highest number of processes (36) running in a digitized fashion. In our centralized processing unit there is not even a square inch of paper. The only priority is to get 24

EXPRESS COMPUTER

the client experience right. When data or a process is moving digitally there are a lot of benefits to avail. Centrally, we know what the customers request and can control if it is happening on time, etc. It reduces the overall turn-around time.

System based checks are initiated, and thus, at every stage human error is reduced. For example, someone has submitted passport copy as a KYC proof and it goes all the way up, and then it is denied because the document is expired

versus the moment it is submitted the system notifies that it is not applicable. It is like an assembly line, wherein one can know every item in the system. There is a huge complexity that is compressed to create a simple system on the front.

When the first screen upload happens there are innumerable calls at the backend.

Design is intrinsic and there is significant complexity at the backend. To support that one has to consider how NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

data centers work, how the system is architected, how communication happens between systems. The experience is paramount in terms of milliseconds. If the application doesn't open in 7 seconds the entire experience goes for a toss. One has to start thinking at micro-level.

We have also put the API gateway in place. It is like saying, "I can expose any service to the customer or any partner".

They come onto the portal and plug it in their system to initiate a payment gateway and it is on without integration.

Digital India, QuickSun are using it for payments, remittances, etc. Since January we started off with 10,000 and were 4 million last month. Fingerprint banking has been the most recent digital initiative at IndusInd Bank.

Going mobile Mobility is a key initiative for us, as that is how people are accessing the services. We have also initiated the concept of video branch. From mobility stand-point using these two applications, one can access any of the services of the bank whether through self-service or assisted service mode.

For the past two years the focus has been how to enable a lot of stuff on mobile. The video branch is much ahead of its time. This service is open to both customers and non-customers by any channel. It is even better than a branch experience as it recognizes you by your face. One is not required to remember any password or any manual. Simply by the art of telling, the transaction is done. Mobility will continue to be our focus. Very recently, we did an update on our applications, so we have added new services like notifications, etc. The objective is that anything you want to do with the bank can happen through mobile.

Going mobile means dealing with various operating systems. Typically the same application has to be created on every platform. We have gone with Mobile Application Development Platform (MADP), so that all the codebase is in one place, which can be EXPRESS COMPUTER

published in each of these platforms.

Finally, it is all about customer experience. The difference is that the client experience is speedy and seamless where there is no webpage load. One does not need to do login through OTP. The first time when a customer logs in, a lot of data is taken at that time and post that device is registered. After he can just login with his/her fingerprint.

The design thought is around customer experience. It has to be the way customer wants the transaction to happen. As a result of this we are seeing huge growth. Netbanking usage grows by 10-11% YOY. Mobile banking is growing by 25% month on month.

Complexity as an opportunity The exercise we are doing is to internally re-architect our entire infrastructure.

Monitoring is an important aspect of any digital initiative. In any mobile

transaction one has to check whether every component is behaving well.

Finally, we are focused on creating an end result. Digital Experience Management is also important. While the complexity has gone up, there is an opportunity to hide that complexity and present a userfriendly surface.

We are reviewing machine learning and AI. But presently, we are in the phase where we are looking at how can these add value. The challenge comes when you ask the question, "What next?" We are still a mid-size organization, so for us to think something and to construct it quickly is a challenge. Our branch sizes may become smaller as lot of stuff may get automated. However, branches will never go off completely as people still want face-to-face interaction when transacting.

- As told to Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

25

INTERVIEW THOMAS KEENAN UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

DDOS HAS BECOME A MAINSTREAM THREAT TO BUSINESSES “We have tied up with ISPs for countering DDoS attacks and we are and closely working with regulators and dedicated agencies like Cert-IN and IDRBT to identify such attacks early and thwart them in-time,” says P Sitaram, Executive Director, IDBI Bank. In conversation with Ankush Kumar, Sitaram shares his thoughts on the criticality of ever increasing cyber threats in the banking sector and the key steps that IDBI has taken to mitigate them What are the key security measures that your bank has taken for safeguarding the customer's privacy and data?

The security of IDBI’s online banking is achieved through prudent security practices i.e. security access codes (userID & password), privacy of data transfer through encryption (SSL-128 bit encryption protocol from entrust), firewalls (allows customers access to particular services, while at the same time deny access to systems and databases with classified bank data and information), security of personal information, session time-out, etc. The bank uses two-factor authentication mechanism via OTP to ensure the transactions are secured. Privacy of customers’ information is secured both from internal and external accesses. The bank has also implemented a Data Loss Prevention (DLP) tool to alert any leakage of information.

IDBI bank regularly conducts awareness sessions for employees to sensitize and educate them about safeguarding customer’s privacy and data. IDBI bank has also deployed a data leakage prevention tool to check and prevent any data leakages from the bank’s environment.

Tell us about the steps that have been taken to safeguard the digital assets of the bank?

IDBI’s Information Security policy is based on the recommendations of RBI appointed Gopalakrishna Committee on information security, electronic banking, 26

EXPRESS COMPUTER

IDBI bank’s Go Mobile App is a highly secured platform and requires two-factor authentication in the form of a dynamic OTP for each and every transaction.The MPIN created by the user,is securely encrypted on the mobile handset technology risk management and cyber frauds. The policy and processes in the bank are implemented very judiciously.

The IT infrastructure and systems are implemented within a robust Information Security framework. IDBI Bank’s Centralised Data Centre and Disaster Recovery Site have been accredited with the latest ISO 27001:2013 certification, a reputed information security certification.

IDBI bank is one of the first banks to have built near DR site to reduce RPO to Zero. Measures to enhance the security levels for taking effective actions against ‘Phishing’ attacks are in place. Apart from conducting regular information

security awareness programmes for employees, various information security precautions are communicated to the customers. IDBI Bank is taking necessary steps to enhance safety, security and efficiency in banking processes.

Online banking and mobile banking is yet to gain momentum in India due to increasing security threats.Are your platforms secure enough?

IDBI bank’s Go Mobile App is a highly secured platform and requires two-factor authentication in the form of a dynamic OTP for each and every transaction. The MPIN created by the user, is securely encrypted on the mobile handset. No account information or any other account-sensitive credentials is stored on the mobile phone, making it completely safe and secure. These measures help in boosting customer confidence in banking with us.

What has been the biggest security challenge for banking CIOs/ IT Heads in recent times?

In recent years Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have become a mainstream threat to businesses, governmental agencies and critical infrastructure worldwide. DDoS attacks have grown in complexity, volume and sophistication. DDoS attack is a strewn challenge where the spurious or fake packets are sent to the victim in abnormally large number. DDoS attempts to block important services NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

Ajoint effort is needed by all affected organizations in a collaborative manner to thwart cyber attacks in-time running on victim’s server by flooding the victim’s server with packets.

The difference with DDoS is that this attack that does not originate from a single host or network but from multiple hosts or networks which might have already been compromised. IDBI Bank has tied up with ISPs for mitigating DDoS attacks. We are also closely working with regulators and dedicated agencies like Cert-IN and IDRBT to identify such attacks early and thwart them in-time.

How is IT being used by your bank for better customer service delivery?

IDBI Bank’s customer-centric orientation in product constructs and service delivery is reflected in its vision and mission statement. The mission of IDBI bank is to delight customers with excellent service and a comprehensive suite of best-in-class financial solutions to achieve the vision of being the most preferred and trusted bank by enhancing value for all stakeholders. IDBI Bank endeavors on a sustained basis to adhere to this corporate philosophy at each customer touch-point. IDBI provides services to customers through wide network of branches, ATM. Further customers can transact through Net, Mobile, POS, etc. and customers can make various utility payments through these channels. IDBI bank is one of the first banks to provide to their customers an online portal through which both direct and state taxes can be paid. IDBI Bank monitors customer satisfaction on an ongoing basis through a feedback form hosted on its website. This enables EXPRESS COMPUTER

customers to rate IDBI bank and provide suggestions for improvement. IDBI bank’s revamped website not only facilitates a more user-friendly web interface and better navigating experience to its visitors, but also includes an innovative tool for locating your bank’s branches and ATMs. As security issues increase exponentially, are the banks in India well prepared? What is required to be done?

It is very important now that a joint effort is made by all affected organizations as a collaborative effort to thwart attacks intime. It is also being realized that only a market-wide response can provide serious, long-term answers to the global industry challenges caused by cyber threats to banking.

The government has setup a National Critical Information Infrastructure Centre (NCIIPC), which is working as an organization that provides various guidelines in protecting critical information infrastructure (CII) of the country. The banking industry has been identified as CII and NCIIPC makes effort in alerting the CIIs in advance.

Cert-IN is also collaborating with NCIIPC is advising CII. IDRBT too, under the advice of RBI, has setup a collaborative forum of CISOs from banking industries where information sharing and mitigants/ technologies used are freely exchanged and thus banks are better equipped to manage any security risk. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

27

OPINION SUBRAT MOHANTY BAJAJ ALLIANZ LIFE INSURANCE

BAJAJ ALLIANZ LIFE:

FOCUSING ON DIGITAL TO IMPROVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Recognizing the immense value of a digital play, Bajaj Allianz has created a series of mobile apps for every function, says Subrat Mohanty, Head of Marketing, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance

D

igitization is rapidly changing the dynamics of Life Insurance industry in India in terms of delivering value to the customers.

Insurers are using advanced technologies in order to simplify the customer experience, be it selling or connecting with a customer during a policy term. From a paper-dominated world we are shifting towards a digital world in which new means of communication and informationsharing make it possible to work independently of time and place.

Keeping pace with this trend, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance has been continuously focusing on use of technology to improve the customer experience and reduce time for servicing the existing customers and new business/ renewal transactions. With an 28

EXPRESS COMPUTER

With an aim to provide a secure and locationindependent insurance tool to its sales-force, we leveraged technology and developed INSTAB – a point of sale tool which addresses every Insurance requirement from SOURCING TO SERVICING

aim to provide a secure and locationindependent insurance tool to its salesforce, we leveraged technology and developed INSTAB – a point of sale tool which addresses every Insurance requirement from SOURCING TO SERVICING (S2S). INSTAB is an android application equipped for the sales force to connect with the customer in a digital manner. The app enables faster policy purchase and caters to all insurance needs of a customer ultimately resulting into customer delight in terms of premium collection, payment & servicing acknowledgement which is done within few minutes thus reducing the overall TAT. The company also realized, based on feedback from sales and operations teams, that the major reason for nonNOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

collection of complete documents against a new policy has been lack of knowledge and absence of a tool to find out the exact premium amount or documents to be submitted for underwriting. BALIC Genie was ideated to solve this issue. This app also works offline and guides the sales force on underwriting requirements onthe-go, thereby reducing time for both the customers and intermediaries.

It is equally important for a customer to initiate service or maintain details of his or her policy. Here again the Company thought of providing a technology solution for the customers as a selfservicing platform to avail our services without visiting branch. Hence, Life Assist application was developed. With the help of this app, customers can add policies, save transaction receipts,

EXPRESS COMPUTER

DIGITALSUCCESS INSTAB - Collection and user details including 2015-16 & 2016-17 till date: ● New Business – Approximately Rs 62 crores ● Renewal Business – Approximately 5.5 crores ●

Registered users – 3500 +

BALIC Genie - More than 11,555 installations within 15 months of deployment

update profile, change password, track, manage and raise service requests for their policy using this application.

Over the years, technology has evolved significantly. In sync with this, an android-based application ‘I am BALIC’ was developed for all our employees. The app is conceptualized and designed in such a way that the employees will have access to his/her HR related services.

The app has features like – checking attendance, applying for leaves, checking CEO communication, getting mediclaim and PF details etc. This is a one-stop solution for the employees to stay connected on the go.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

29

OPINION MARTIN DE JONG AEGON LIFE INSURANCE

AEGON LIFE INSURANCE:

USING DIGITAL TO BE ATTHE FOREFRONT OF CUSTOMER INTERACTION We want to ensure that the customer experience is at the top of the bill, states Martin De Jong, Chief Digital Officer, Aegon Life Insurance

T

he front-end systems which are customer facing has to be extremely agile compared to the back-end systems. Our frontend systems are separated from backend systems which gives them seamless quality. Life Insurance companies have a model that varies from B2B2C model or D2C model, which is an important strategy from a digital point of view. It means selling directly to customers. This makes it important to listen and communicate directly to the end customer. It means dealing from a finite number of distributors to millions of customers.

Analytics has a very strategic role to play here. Analytics has to be much more advanced as it now needs to sift through information from millions of customers. It needs to answer and delve into aspects of how can I understand them as a customer, what

30

EXPRESS COMPUTER

kind of product are they looking for, how can they be better served? We reach our customers through website, direct sales agents, and distributors.

Analytics is split in two parts: digital analytics and advanced analytics. We recently got a software called Plumtree for marketing automation. We can hypertarget our customers We are very experimental with our partners and it is a big part of our digital initiative. We like to work mainly with Indian companies.

Advanced analytics is the next step.

For example, it helps us gauge how long the customer is staying with us. We have to account profitability which is continuously changing. We use tools like R, Tableau as well. Presently, we are experimenting with tracking health of customer with co-operation of customer.

If the customer gets healthy over time, we give them rewards. It is not being done in India as of now.

Innovation for transparent information We are a very innovative company. We came with Facebook insurance. When it comes to customers, we bring the right message for right need. If there is no agent, the website needs to give very transparent information, which is easy to understand and to purchase. Lot of customers who are using other channels to buy, still first go to a website. It is a digital front door to our customer. We are planning to come up with a number of initiatives for our customers to ensure that they stay healthy. For example, there are lot of diabetics in India. We are working on an initiative where we help our customers talk to our partners and how they can prevent diabetes.

We have lot of Fintech partners.

Presently, we are working on building open APIs. It will help the customers as well. For example, if we integrate with NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

ATMs, it is more easier for customers to pay. Also, creating triggers for customer will be made efficient. If someone has taken home loan, the person might also be interested in buying home insurance and we can create such a trigger at the right moment. We almost do everything with partners, not only start-ups.

We are in a test phase right now.

Increasingly, the middlemen is being cutout. Customers want to directly approach the provider. We are at the forefront of this interaction with the customer. We want to ensure that the customer experience is at the top of the bill.

When it comes to fraud and security, our pay-out ratio for customers is highest in the industry. The pay-out ratio for online customers is 100%. We are active in 25 countries. All the knowledge combined makes us very aggressive on security front. For employees, we have launched Yammer. It is a good engagement EXPRESS COMPUTER

We are working on building open APIs, which will help customers. For example, if we integrate with ATMs, it is more easier for customers to pay. If someone has taken home loan, the person might also be interested in buying home insurance and we can create such a trigger at the right moment

platform. We use it to share documents, announcements etc. We are also increasingly using tools like Slack to keep communication more focused. It is a good tool to communicate around projects.

The website is part of a mobile initiative.

Rather than responsive design, we went for completely mobile first design. It is much easier to generate the growth. Purchasing a policy through it is easy, but also postpurchasing is made easy. The customer want to see how easy is it to renew the policy? How easy is it to settle claims?

We are also working with real time integration and real time service incorporation. It should be easy to buy, issue and easy to use. We get the data from the customer, other database from reinsurer, and give a real time answer. The vision is to optimize the policy on all fronts.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal and Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

31

OPINION EASWARA NARAYANAN FUTURE GENERALI INDIA INSURANCE

FUTURE GENERALI INDIA INSURANCE :

DIGITAL PLAY ENHANCES CUSTOMER SATISFACTION The Indian insurance sector is going through a phase of massive transformation, enabled by technology. Components which were not thought of earlier are now becoming successful line of businesses facilitated by technology, says Easwara Narayanan, Chief Operating Officer, Future Generali India Insurance

W

e are using digital technology to facilitate agent's journey.

For example, if an agent is not in the office and still wants to issue a policy, he can do it through his mobile. We have realized that it is not enough to have a digital front-face. The back-end should also be strong and services should also be helped by digital initiatives.

In our loss assessment, we have a software called i-Moss. i-MoSS (instant – Mobile Survey and Settlement) was launched for surveyors to help conduct on-the-spot conclusion of 70% of our motor insurance claims. Our company is the first to introduce Optical Character Reader (OCR), which is designed to calculate estimates and liability of each party within seconds. Complex algorithms at the back-end help in 32

EXPRESS COMPUTER

accurate and faster calculations through the OCR. i-MoSS can work on both offline as well as online modes.

A good number of claims are handled by in-house persons. We have started the usage of app with them and we will soon be extending the facility to our external surveyors. For loss of an amount that is less than or equal to Rs 50,000 one can assess themselves. Beyond that, we have to hire an external surveyor for the sake of neutrality. i-MoSS is equipped with lot of facilities. Firstly, survey allocation is done through the system. It has OCR (Optical Character Reader) which enables the surveyor to take the picture of damaged vehicle. Then the estimate given by the workshop is scanned. Once it is scanned, the OCR converts the picture into digits. He can assess the loss there, and if he has in-house authority, he can

approve the claim. If it is beyond his authority then he can push it to the superiors.

Customer experience improves because turn-around time comes down drastically due to this. Productivity also escalates as more surveys can be done.

Otherwise, the surveyor has to return to the office and compile the report and get approvals etc. Original estimate undergoes change based on what is approved and what is negotiated. It is a consensual process. The entire claims life-cycle becomes a lot more smoother to all people concerned.

We have also launched a software called Pre-Auth module, which is an online system through which cashless health insurance claims is processed on cloud-based platforms; data is exchanged and processed with the hospital and is a NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

differentiator in the health insurance industry. Cashless claims will get passed in 1-2 hours while without a cloud based platform, cashless claims are generally sent through e-mails & fax, and can take 4-5 hours, or more, to get passed.

We are offering Pre-Auth module for our preferred network hospitals. The patient can key in their diagnosis, doctors prescription, documents in soft form. All they have to do is log into the module, which will always be logged in since patients would be coming in. They just have to upload the documents, which gets pushed to health service providers.

The whole journey is absolutely seamless We provide web servicing to many people. Through web servicing, our partners provide a website or link which is connected to ours. Customized policies can be packaged and sold. Home insurance is also one of the few areas where long term policies are allowed. For ordinary policies, this is not allowed. We are going to launch an e-worksite. It facilitates purchase of a policy in a company for its employees. From HR site of the company, there could be a link to our site.

Horizons of possibility With changing times and changing demographics needs also change. Today the concept is that insurance is all a play of fraction. If there is a denominator and numerator, then it is a manageable fraction. The denominator is the space available for you, which is the universe of insurable property or insurable asset available. Numerator is a possibility of loss which could be its frequency or average size. Numerator is less than denominator and there is the element of uncertainty. Earlier, twenty years credit insurance would have sounded very improbable. Presently, it is a very important line of business.

Some companies are coming up with insurance for diabetic patients. This was not a product that could have been thought of earlier. Maternity was generally not covered in individual policies earlier. In our health policy after a waiting period of four years maternity is covered. Based on changing EXPRESS COMPUTER

demographics felt and unrealised needs are covered. We are pushing this priority that a customer can simply buy the policy online.

India is one of the highly uninsured markets. The industry has started working with the government to reach large masses of people to get insured.

Through the government machinery we are able to reach a vast section of the mass. Agriculture insurance this year is going to net around Rs 18,000 crores. Common Service Centres (CSCs) are also emerging. They do various government services. Our regulator has given them a special scheme to make them intermediates.

They can sell insurance as well. The targeted number is around 2-3 lakh CSCs across the country. Thus, the insurance industry will have these many touch points.

One of the core area of focus for us is micro insurance. One vital class to be addressed is the working class in the rural areas. Apart from CSCs, we have

105 co-operative banks through whom we are distributing insurance, which is mostly personal. We have a software which works offline and is capable of being integrated. The policy through this can be issued offline. At the end of the day, one can link and sync it with the system, so the whole data gets transferred to the main system. We have also introduced Sukshma Hospi-Cash wherein when someone is hospitalized, an assured compensation is given to them everyday.

Presently, the most unrepresented area is home insurance. Even after the floods in Chennai, the uptake of home insurance has been really low. We are looking at creating awareness in this area. The return on home insurance may not be immediately very high, because premium size is small. But it has a very huge potential.

In any activity that we undertake, the first thing we look for is how can technology help us do it better, faster and in a simpler way.

NOVEMBER, 2016

33

INTERVIEW KALPANA MANIAR EDELWEISS FINANCIAL SERVICES

EDELWEISS’ APPROACH TO BI MODAL IT For Edelweiss, Bi Modal IT is not just about having separate teams. Both business solutions and digital solutions teams are engaging simultaneously. The idea is not only to formulate the core and then do the digital solutions separately. It’s a more comprehensive approach of supporting any business with technology in all its forms - be it mobile or the web.

Abhishek Raval speaks to Kalpana Maniar, President & CIO, Edelweiss Financial Services

34

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

Edelweiss is following the Bimodal IT approach.What’s your thought process behind having two modes of IT? There are some teams which are doing business as usual and some are working on the digital and the new technologies and the innovation initiatives. However, to my mind Bimodal is not a structure. It’s an approach because even in Business As Usual (BAU) you will always have ways of doing things differently. For us Bimodal is a philosophy that we want to adopt besides just two separate teams working on BAU activities and innovation initiatives.

How is Edelweiss applying the Bimodal philosophy on the ground?

We have a separate digital solutions team, which works only on initiatives related mobility, analytics and other innovation initiatives. Working only on the new technologies. The Business solutions team works on solutions related to business.

What we are doing is for example you require a solution for a new business, so we are entering into new businesses every year. We have a new business for instance., agri value chain. This new business needs a core solution to carry out its operations.

But we are not only working with them to provide new solutions. Both the business solution and digital solution team is engaging simultaneously. The idea is not only to formulate the core and then do the digital solutions separately. It’s a more comprehensive approach of supporting any business with technology in all its forms - be it mobile, web etc together.

We see a lot of potential of using new technologies in our Agri Services and Commodities (ASC) business, refining business - IoT, analytics and Big Data.

How is Edelweiss translating the benefits of BDA,machine learning and artificial intelligence into the various businesses that the company is into?

We are working with a few business use cases in analytics. One of our businesses is cross selling better by taking advantage of the analytics solution. The customer churn has reduced too.

In one of the other businesses, analytics EXPRESS COMPUTER

We are working with a few business use cases in analytics.One of our businesses is cross selling better by taking advantage of the analytics solution.The customer churn has reduced too.In one of the other businesses,analytics is improving the web sales.This is still in the experimentation stage but we are finding good results is improving the web sales. These are still in the experimentation stage but we are finding good results. As and when they are proved to be a good fit for that business, the plan is to reuse the same solution for other businesses.

We have set up a Big Data infrastructure. Combining Artificial Intelligence and Big Data, we are experimenting with tools which can act as crawlers to find all the online publicly available information about companies, products, customers, scrips. For example all the unstructured data about the company, use it along with our structured data to arrive for meaningful information.

This gives us a 360 degree view.

The company is also using machine learning and Artificial Intelligence for speech analysis. The sales force have access to the CRM on their mobile. They need not pay a visit to the office to enter the data but post a video, which automatically converts the speech into

text which is filled into the various forms in the CRM application.

We are leveraging external expertise along with a few tools bought earlier and have been with the company for some time now.

Enterprise mobility initiatives On the customer side, we have developed mobile enabled CRM. We are developing apps for our retail financing business, capital market operations. These apps are targeted for retail investors, SMEs. For the employees, the work on app development is happening for the sales force. The initiative on geo-tracking is on currently. The idea is to recommend the sales person to the nearest customer on the basis of his current location.

Edelweiss has launched ‘Edelweiss Springboard’to tap into the academia’s tech talent.Tell us more about how has been your experience?

The idea is to engage with the fresh talent repository in the tier two engineering colleges in Mumbai and Pune. To generate ideas using the emerging fintech like IoT, mobility, analytics, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), which can be used for the kind of businesses Edelweiss operates in. The students are briefed about the the nature of business of Edelweiss and the kind of ideas required. The students post the orientation session form a group of four and submit the ideas.

All the shortlisted ideas will undergo a PoC and then if it lives upto our merit, the students can opt for placement at Edelweiss or other arrangements can be worked out.

However ‘Edelweiss Springboard’ is not for placement. It’s meant to be an idea generation platform. It’s a win-win for Edelweiss and the students. At times, the students have ideas but lack in resources and money to try them out and for us we will get ideas and a pipeline of deserving candidates.

Edelweiss is in the process of curating the ideas. The innovation team is involved in curation of ideas. Subsequently, the business teams will join. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

35

OPINION VIVEK BELGAVI PWC INDIA

DIGITALINNOVATION IN BANKING

W

hile technology has always played a significant role in shaping the financial services industry, the penetration of digital technologies in our day-to-day lives has had phenomenal repercussions on how industry behemoths run their businesses.

The Indian banking industry has especially witnessed significant innovations across the banking value chain, redefining business models, service delivery mechanisms and internal operations.

The primary change that these technologies have brought about is a marked shift in power to retail consumers.

Digital platforms provide customers with instant access to near real-time information regardless of geographical location, apart from facilitating instantaneous flow of information and data. The benefits that these technologies provide have significant implications on customer expectations, as consumers expect the same level of convenience and seamlessness across the different aspects of their lives, including their relationship with the FS industry.

Banks today, more than ever before, are acknowledging the fact that the most important attribute to consider is customer-centricity. For instance, a PwC study on the consumer lending space further emphasizes this point. While

36

EXPRESS COMPUTER

Customer Acquisition and Onboarding While KYC (know your customer) is an extremely important regulatory requirement, the physical documentation process has always been a point of friction for banks when it comes to customer acquisition. Digital options are providing a much needed solution.

Riding the wave of ever-increasing smartphone penetration and augmenting biometric technologies and other innovations like eKYC, banks are now in a position to go paperless when it comes to customer acquisition and account opening: An international bank recently launched its own completely digital bank solution where customers can open up an e-wallet through the bank’s app and convert the

Technology companies are able to find new market spaces within the financial services landscape and lower costs of delivery Delays Complexity

Physical Costly Presence Inaccessibility propositions

Need for Documentation cash

Eliminate Fraud Digital Finance

Raise

Geographical barriers

Transparency Reduce

Digital technologies allow banks to gain access to significant volumes of real-time data that provide insights into customer behavior and needs. Such superior data access has already spawned a number of innovative approaches such as robo-advice

interest rates continue to be the most important consideration while choosing a lender, customers also value superior customer experience. The infographic below highlights how the importance of the digital channel has grown beyond being a millennial exclusive channel: Adopting such digital channels has provided banks with fantastic opportunities to engage with customers and capture market space. Banks today leverage digital technologies across the value chain:

Reach Convenience

Disaggregation Create Acceptance infra.

Rich data insights

Credit profiles Interoperability

Interconnected services

Real time systems

NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

same into a full-fledged savings account by completing biometric authentication (fingerprint) and submitting Aadhaar card details at one of the many outlets of a very popular coffee chain. Similar approaches have been adopted where sales representatives are equipped with smartphones and biometric scanners to complete the acquisition process from the comfort of the customer’s location.

Digital technologies also allow banks to gain access to significant volumes of realtime data that provide insights into customer behavior and needs. Such superior data access has already spawned a number of innovative approaches such as alternate credit decisioning and roboadvice. By combining traditional data with alternate sources – including social media, geo-spatial, mobile usage and other forms of data – banks are able to build more robust risk and customer segmentation models. From a credit risk underwriting perspective, banks are now able to more accurately price risk and can therefore extend credit to customer segments that are traditionally underbanked (thin file, new to credit customers). From a customer segmentation perspective, financial institutions can now curate highly specific experiences tailored to different customer personas, leading to greater customer delight and better up-sell and cross-sell opportunities for banks. This tech enablement has helped banks to lower acquisition cost and optimize sales effort.

Based on learnings from data, banks can now accurately strategise on what to sell, whom to sell to and how to sell.

Customer servicing While providing customers with a banking app is now a given, gone are the days where app features are limited to balance checking and ATM/branch locating. A number of innovative players are taking this channel of customer interaction to the next level: for example, by using the GPS functionality that most smart-phones have, banks are able to study customer movements and provide location-specific offers linked to bank payment options, with higher chances of conversion. Other innovative services include studying user transactions and account balance EXPRESS COMPUTER

Figure 1: Channel preference by loan phase and generation Research loan types / rates

Apply for a loan

Submit documnets

Digital

50% of respondents Traditional

behavior to predict future balance and cash-flow needs, that are delivered realtime through such apps.

The disruption that FinTech players are bringing to the banking industry also showcases the potential gains to be had by banks from digital technologies, especially in servicing customers. The innovations in payments are a clear indication of this with the growth in e-wallet use as a key example. Many banks already have their own wallets allowing customers to setup seamlessly with no documentation. The key to winning in this space will, however, be through smart tie-ups with merchants to drive transaction traffic to the wallets.

Using app based data, banks are in a position to link transactions with locations and merchants to make better decisions on which merchants would provide greater traffic conversion.

Another development that will have significant impact in the banking transaction arena is the launch of UPI: NPCI recently launched the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) along with 19 Indian Banks, which will allow customers to transfer up to INR 1 lakh in a single transaction between two banks in a few clicks. Customers will also be able to make merchant payments, bill payments, and inapp payment for goods or services purchased online, without the hassle of entering account details, IFSC codes and other information. Combining this framework with digital channels of interaction will provide banks with even greater opportunities to attract customers and funnel transactions to their platforms.

Future trends If the last few years are anything to go by,

Review documnets

Sign documnets

Pay up-front costs

18-34 (Millennial) 35-54 (Gen X) 55-72 (Baby Boomers) 73-83 (Silent Generation

the future of the Indian Banking space looks very promising. One major trend to look out for is the increasing use of an open-API framework that would form the next stage in the evolution of the digital banking space. An API-centric approach would allow banks to seamlessly tie-up with third party innovators and provide swift go-to-market solutions with significantly lower investment, research and development. While such an approach would involve letting go of a certain level of control, banks would have the opportunity to provide highly innovative services to their customers.

Another key digital technology that continues to gain momentum in the banking space is Blockchain. As we have discussed in our recent report “Fintech: Redefining banking for customers”, Blockchain has the potential to disrupt the banking industry to its core through its adoption for storing, lending, moving, trading, accounting, reconciling and guaranteeing money through its consensus ledger, cryptographic security and digital signature.

It is clear that digital technologies provide unbound opportunities to the banking industry, and a number of industry players are already reaping the benefits of adopting these channels. Banks will need to pay heed to the fact that the key to maximizing the gains from such technologies is to design products and services that keep the customer at the centre and meet their ever increasing expectations of convenience, seamlessness and transparency.

– Vivek Belgavi is Leader,FinTech,PwC India (views expressed are personal) NOVEMBER, 2016

37

FEATURE

BLOCKCHAIN

»

WITH

HOW INDIA CAN ACCELERATE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

BLOCKCHAIN

Blockchain is rightly being described as a ‘new internet’ that can serve as the foundation for a new wave of applications in areas as diverse as finance to real estate to e-commerce and even government services

BY RASHI VARSHNEY

I

n the 1990s, when the web came into the picture, websites were a geeky concept, and up until 2000s, we could list out organizations with or without websites. As new technologies have evolved, both private and government organizations have adopted a gradual approach for implementing emerging technologies. From mobile to cloud, firms are experimenting with new technologies. Blockchain is the latest technology which has attracted huge attention.

Blockchain is the same technology

38

EXPRESS COMPUTER

behind powering Bitcoin, which was not able to create a big enough impact in the market. The blockchain is basically a database where all Bitcoin transactions are recorded and stored. However, now many have focused on the ways to use blockchain without involving Bitcoins for transactions or self-agreement ledger way. The blockchain or ‘distributed ledgers,’ as they are often described is updated and maintained, not by a single body, company or government, but run by a network of users. It’s akin to the way a shared Google spreadsheet is maintained

by its users. The technology relies on a network of computers, and hence organizations view it as an attractive technology as it eliminates the need of central institution to keep records.

“Blockchain typically should be considered when you want to eliminate trusted intermediaries, add transparency and immutable audit trail, have multiparty data sharing when the parties don’t trust each other and improve efficiencies by maintaining constantly synced up distributed ledger,” said Pandurang Kamat, Chief Architect – Innovation and NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

R&D at Persistent Systems.

The effectiveness of a website to digitally transform enterprises and various organizations were seen with the likes of Amazon, Google and other internet giants. On similar lines, IT leaders are of the opinion that blockchain can enable India to leapfrog the digital transformation.

“The lack of automation and digitization in many areas may actually turn out to be an advantage and allow us to ‘do it right the first time’. Just like we were able to bypass the telephone EXPRESS COMPUTER

landline proliferation and leapfrog directly into the mobile revolution, we could do the same in our digital transformation journey across various sectors and industries by creating a next gen infrastructure based on blockchain technology. This can provide a competitive advantage as compared to a lot of other countries who have a history of legacy infrastructure to worry about,” said Deepak Kinger, Vice President, Banking and Financial Services, VirtusaPolaris.

Looking at the blockchain wave, IT

enterprises are aiming to ride on the tide with various strategies around it to build the ecosystem. For instance, IBM is actively participating in every facet of blockchain technology. “We have contributed tens of thousands of lines of code to the Linux Foundation-led Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source platform that works across industries with support for security, consensus and smart contracts. We deliver services offered on the cloud which enables developers to setup a blockchain network in a short amount of time. Along with our NOVEMBER, 2016

39

FEATURE

BLOCKCHAIN

»

HR Khan,DeputyGovernor,Reserve Bankof India,recentlysaid that the central bankmaysoon set up a committee to studythe use of blockchain technologyto reduce the use of paper currencyand also to reduce the cheque frauds JAM (Jandhan, Aadhar and Mobile) has revolutionized the Indian banking ecosystem.This infrastructure further makes the adoption of blockchain easier, cheaper and faster in the country Rajashekara V.Maiya Associate Vice President & Head – Finacle Product Strategy, EdgeVerve

Blockchain is rightly being described as a ‘newinternet’that can serve as the foundation for a new wave of applications in areas as diverse as finance to real estate to e-commerce and even government services 40

EXPRESS COMPUTER

clients, we are actively working on applying the technology to various industries and fundamentally rethink how business works in these industries,” said Sriram Raghavan, Director – IBM Research – India & CTO, IBM India/South Asia.

He also informed that IBM is actively contributing and helping to grow the Hyperledger fabric, led by the Linux Foundation. It is a collaborative effort by many industry leaders to advance blockchain technology by identifying and addressing key features for a crossindustry open standard that can transform the way business transactions are conducted globally.

The fabric supports a permissioned blockchain network and provides support for many security features including confidentiality, user privacy and auditability. It has a modular architecture that allows for a pluggable consensus module. There is no native cryptocurrency – instead, the focus is on supporting smart contracts that can aid in codifying business processes that transcend organizational boundaries, where data and processes can be managed in a decentralized fashion amongst a set of distrusting peer nodes.

The fabric can be used to build a variety of solutions in the areas of trade finance and logistics, supply chain finance, capital market settlement systems, payment systems, and shared KYC systems.

Similarly, Finacle - a universal banking solution from EdgeVerve Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Infosys, launched a scalable blockchain framework that allows enterprises to overhaul and simplify complex transaction-driven services. In addition to the financial sector, it can be applied across several industries, and enable a company to co-innovate with clients.

“Our blockchain framework and applications on top of it is being developed in our R&D centers in India and Ireland.

We have over 40 employees certified in this technology from Blockchain University in US. Leveraging this framework, banks will be able to process their payments, remittances, trade finance transactions on blockchain.

Further the framework provides for identity services to implement KYC, smart contracts to manage secure and digital contracts on blockchain network,” mentioned Rajashekara V. Maiya, Associate Vice President & Head – Finacle Product Strategy, EdgeVerve (an Infosys company).

In July this year, Mphasis unveiled its Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Blockchain based solutions at its Bangalore headquarters. The CoE aims to conduct research, rapid prototyping, co-creation of use cases and IP creation on blockchain technology and platforms. Gopinathan Padmanabhan, Chief Innovation Officer and President – Global Delivery, Mphasis stated that the Centre of Excellence launched a proprietary Mphasis Blockchain Framework to facilitate enterprises to adopt and onboard blockchain based solutions and services for the mortgage, insurance and payment industries on private blockchain.

“Mphasis’ Blockchain Framework consists of three layers – applications, data and routing layer and enablers to interface with multiple public blockchains. The data and routing layer is the core of this framework, designed to help organizations store and publish millions of cryptographic proofs on blockchain. The enablers will help accelerate the process of adopting blockchain by the organizations, thereby reducing the time and complexity of onboarding and operating cost for NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

adopting blockchain,” he explained.

Companies such as VirtusaPolaris are also making investments in understanding and experimenting with the various frameworks and platforms while building a solution framework that can abstract the specifics of these platforms to align with the standards as it matures. VirtusaPolaris solution framework for blockchain has a two pronged approach - first, blockchain consulting framework, which can help the company’s clients to make sense of the various flavors of blockchain from Ethereum, Corda and IBM-Linux Hyperledger to the multitude of startups like MultiChain and Chromaway.

“Specifically, we can help clients choose how they can participate (public/private blockchain or a hybrid approach), come up with the RoI and business case models, figure out how blockchain will coexist with the legacy infrastructure and understand what the security and regulatory compliance requirements are,” said Kinger. Secondly, VirtusaPolaris is also providing sandbox environment to test the technology and experiment with the various flavors and solutions available today. The company can implement its target use cases in a safe environment with minimal investments before it commits to long term projects leveraging blockchain. This is especially relevant in the context of Indian banks and enterprises which have limited IT budgets compared to their global peers.

There is no sector, which cannot be disrupted with a technology such as blockchain. Taking cue from Bitcoins, banking systems come first in mind, which can be transformed with the use of blockchain.

Blockchain in banking Recently, HR Khan, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India said that the central bank may soon set up a committee to study the use of blockchain technology to reduce the use of paper currency and also to reduce the cheque frauds. “JAM (Jandhan, Aadhar and Mobile) has revolutionized the Indian banking ecosystem. This infrastructure further EXPRESS COMPUTER

makes the adoption of blockchain easier, cheaper and faster in the country,” said Maiya. He informed that RBI has outlined the benefits and advantages of blockchain technology in its Financial Stability Report. “Interestingly, India is the biggest market for remittances with over US$ 70 billion annually, the per ticket averages as low as US$ 200. Even for such amounts, users pay as high as 18 per cent fees to banks and intermediaries – bulk of this is also due to the high costs associated with enabling these transactions. In such cases, the implementation of blockchain based remittance solutions can enable the consumers and banks to save up to as much as US$ 7 billion,” said Maiya. Maiya added that compared to core banking, blockchain technology will enhance transaction capabilities across the network and significantly reduce expenses.RBI is forming a committee to explore blockchain technology and calling out to banks to explore the same.

“We are already ahead in experimentation in comparison to many other developed economies. A large majority of Indian population still does not have access to the banking system and this very fact is misused by a corrupt bureaucracy. These challenges can be altered by the application of blockchain technology by the Indian government and financial institutions,” said Padmanabhan.

There is an enormous opportunity for blockchain’s smart contract capabilities for businesses using shared ledgers, specifically in the BFSI sector. “Trade and supply chain finance are handled in high volumes by financial institutions in India, but the processes involve a lot of paperwork, manual processing and verification, and are wrought with inefficiencies. This makes financing difficult and expensive to obtain,” stated Raghavan, adding that customers have little visibility into the status of their requests and transactions, leading to inefficiencies in their own supply chain planning. Blockchain has the potential to fundamentally transform such business processes, significantly reducing the time and cost for obtaining financing, while providing secure visibility into the status

There is an enormous opportunity for blockchain’s smart contract capabilities for businesses using shared ledger Sriram Raghavan Director – IBM Research – India & CTO,IBM India/South Asia

Blockchain’s attributes of trust transparency and immutability can help in solving issues like vote manipulation in our political process Deepak Kinger Vice President,Banking and Financial Services,VirtusaPolaris NOVEMBER, 2016

41

FEATURE

BLOCKCHAIN

» www.expresscomputeronline.com

of transactions to all parties involved.

Raghavan believes that reducing the cost of financing, will have the additional positive effect of opening up financial solutions to the largely untapped small and medium enterprise sector in India.

Digital IndiaThe tech-savvy Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government can effectively achieve Digital India vision by leveraging blockchain. Persistent’s Kamat said that blockchain has the potential to disrupt multiple industries and practically all of those are relevant and applicable here in India. “The use of this technology in land/property registrations and digital locker for all our KYC documents, can add speed and transparency to government, and can create auditable SLAs around delivery of government services,” pointed out Kamat.

Moreover, with the Aadhar card and eKYC becoming mainstream in India, it should be practical to setup an electronic voting system leveraging blockchain.

“Due to the attributes of trust, transparency and immutability, such a system will help solve the issues like vote manipulation in our political process and ensure that the voice of the people is counted,” noted Kinger.

Such solutions are already being spotted outside India. Like, a blockchain company in the US, Follow My Vote, has already released the alpha version of its stake weighted voting software. The alpha version runs on a blockchain using the open-source Graphene Blockchain Framework architected and developed by Follow My Vote CTO, Nathan Hourt and Dan Larimer of Steemit Inc. The software can enable more advanced anonymous, verified identity system which will be used to run a parallel election to the US presidential election in November. Follow My Vote develops open-source blockchain voting software that supports early voting from mobile devices and provides immediate transparency into election results by allowing voters to independently audit the ballot box to ensure that election results are honest.

Tamper-proof land records Land ownership disputes is a challenge in India and often leads to the poorest sections of the society being impacted 42

EXPRESS COMPUTER

due to their land titles being mismanaged and assigned to the rich and powerful. “Having the registry on a blockchain based solution will ensure tamper-proof land title records due to the immutable nature of the technology,” affirmed Kinger. Countries like Honduras, Georgia and Sweden are already on their way to implement such a solution and India can learn from them.

Applying blockchain can make India's public services highly efficient and future proof, believes Padmanabhan. The business processes in the government are not mature and automated as compared to those in other countries. “Blockchain could bring serious disciplinary enhancements in these business transactions and improve the operational efficiency of public departments like utilities, infrastructure, tax, grants, property or land registry system.

Blockchain technology can be utilized to make a huge impact on many of the common problems that we face today – prevent traffic violations, better management of land records, preventing land encroachment, etc., are some ideal use cases,” he added.

Blockchain in solar energy The Mphasis Blockchain CoE, is also developing a prototype for automated claim management in the insurance industry that uses blockchain with IoT devices. The process of fault detection by an IoT device to repairs followed by claim management can all be automated with the help of blockchain technology.

Padmanabhan said that blockchain will be critical to IoT, another emerging technology area. Blockchain can instill intelligence into these IoT devices that can communicate, report and process certain operations by themselves without human intervention. Blockchain will be critical to power this intelligence. “India can be a major source of solar energy and IoT will be critical to distribute this energy. These solar farms can now use Blockchain-based micro grid to distribute and trade energy,” he stated.

Intellectual property (IP) and fraud managementIntellectual property and asset protection has always been a

concern area in India and has hampered foreign investment in many areas. This is true for offline assets such as diamonds, art and sculptures as well as new age digital content including art and music. “A blockchain based registry and distribution platform will not only help manage IP and prevent fraud and piracy, but also enable content owners to derive maximum revenue from their creative work by removing intermediaries and putting a lot more value and sovereignty in the hands of the creators. As an example, platforms such as Ujo, Peertracks and Bittunes are being setup the consumption and licensing of music in the west. The time is right for such platforms to be setup in India,” said Kinger.

Tamper-proof medical records In healthcare, blockchain can be used for health records. Blockchain expert Thomas Keenan, Professor at University of Calgary, acknowledged one of the major problems associated with healthcare, “We want our health privacy but we also want the ER doctor to ‘know all about us’ immediately.” Blockchain technology is capable of providing tamper-proof data management for medical records company. “For instance, Factom, a blockchain technology is providing an unalterable record-keeping system to medical records and services solutions provider, HealthNautica, to secure medical records and audit trails using the blockchain,” he added.

Factom’s technology first cryptographically encodes the private medical data, and a digital fingerprint of the data is used for time-stamping and verification processes. This practice protects patient confidentiality by ensuring the actual medical records are not revealed to third parties, including Factom.

Kinger concluded that blockchain is rightly being described as a ‘new internet’ that can serve as a foundation for a new wave of applications in areas as diverse as finance to real estate to e-commerce to even government services. rashi.varshney@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

OPINION

www.expresscomputeronline.com

TATHAGATO RAI DASTIDAR SIGTUPLE

BHARTI AXA LIFE:

EMBEDDED DIGITAL STRATEGY Latha Ayyar, Chief Operating Officer, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, shares how Bharti AXA Life has been adopting digital strategies to improve every function – from sales to customer servicing processes

B

harti AXA Life has digitalized sales, new business and customer servicing processes.

This includes solutions to do simple product illustrations, need analysis on the mobile and tablets, lead management and distributor self-service that comes handy for sales personnel and makes business solicitation easy.

The e-application portal and sales portal enables both distributors and customers to buy policies online. These portals are integrated with Aadhar, CIBIL, Payment Gateways, Insurance Repository and backend processing engine to make the process simple and customers can buy policies with only few steps online. The customer portal provides access to customers to obtain all policy details, renew polices and also log most policy servicing request online.

Bharti AXA Life being a customer EXPRESS COMPUTER

centric organization, the customer is kept at the center while designing any process.

The e-app application and process was built keeping in mind the customer and sales staff. It provides superior sales and buying experience for the customer and sales staff alike.

With integration with Aadhar and CIBIL, the documentation is minimal. As the application is filled up electronically, the data entry accuracy is high which eliminates post issuance correction requirements. The policy kit can be completed electronically for the customers with insurance repository accounts. The entire process coupled with other sales tools brings in transparency which helps the customer to buy the right product.

Successful digital initiatives e-application, sales tools such as distribution self service can be accessed

from anywhere and anytime which has provided flexibility for sales force and removed backend dependency for information. This has helped in bringing down manual efforts such as data entry in back office thereby improving policy issuance time. The cumulative investment in all the initiatives would be approximately INR 6 to 7 crores. The e-application can be termed as most successful as 100% of the proprietary channel business is logged in using the e-application portal.

Bharti AXA Life was one of the initial life companies in India to launch the online sales channel. Now we are about to launch Marketing and persistency initiatives based on SFMC cloud. The claims portal where life insurance claim can be logged and tracked online is another initiative.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal NOVEMBER, 2016

43

INTERVIEW THOMAS KEENAN UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

THE NON-FINANCIAL SIDE OF BLOCKCHAIN In an interview with Rashi Varshney, Thomas Keenan, Professor at University of Calgary speaks about the importance of blockchain for non-financial usages, as well as security implications of using blockchain technology How would you explain blockchain to us?

We all know Bitcoin, and what makes Bitcoin work is blockchain. The blockchain is the underlying system behind Bitcoin. It is a distributed database that contains transactional data which can represent anything (e.g., with Bitcoin it represents monetary value).

Each block contains a hash of the previous one, providing linkage. Unlike your accountant’s spreadsheet, there are many copies, widely distributed, and a mechanism that allows verification and reduces the chance of tampering.

Why enterprises are keen to adopt blockchain?

Blockchain allows you some degree of anonymity. While all the transactions are public (unlike say, credit card purchases) they are not linked to personally identifiable info. Also, there is no upper limit to the number of bitcoin addresses (often expressed as QR codes) a user can control. The technology enables direct ownership and transfer of digital assets without the need for an intermediary.

Also, it gives speed to a transaction.

Moreover, the programmability enables automation of capabilities on the ledger.

Majorly, blockchain provides irrefutable proof of existence, proof of process and proof of provenance.

What can be the non-financial uses of the Blockchain?

A transaction in a blockchain doesn’t have to represent a Bitcoin, or even money — it can be anything. The parties simply need to agree how to interpret it.

44

EXPRESS COMPUTER

The fundamental concept may have flaws.When more than half the computing power on a blockchain mining network is controlled by an entity, it can effectively collude to certify false transactions.

This sounded far-fetched with ‘Mom and Pop miners’, but the mining landscape has completely changed these days So, blockchain could be used to secure something like a land title in a way that counteracts bribery and corruption, this is already happening in Honduras. The technology can be used in every industry.

In healthcare, the technology can be used for health records. In healthcare, a huge problem is that we want our health privacy but we also want the ER doctor to ‘know all about us’ immediately.

Blockchain technology is capable of providing tamper-proof data management for medical records

company. This can solve many problems for doctors, hospitals, insurance companies, lenders, and even patients.

For instance, Factom, a blockchain technology is providing an unalterable record-keeping system to medical records and services solutions provider, HealthNautica, to secure medical records and audit trails using the blockchain.

Blockchain is value-neutral and widely applicable, and hence it can also be used for so many other self-executing contracts, like digital rights management.

What kind of security implication can blockchain have?

The fundamental concept may have flaws. When more than half the computing power on a blockchain mining network is controlled by an entity, it can effectively collude to certify false transactions. This sounded far-fetched with ‘Mom and Pop miners’, but the mining landscape has completely changed these days. In April 2016, over 70 percent of the transactions on the Bitcoin network were going through just four Chinese companies, known as Bitcoin mining pools — and most flowed through just two of those companies.

There are issues like how to incentivize people to maintain the integrity of non-financial blockchains?

Also, this technology has never been loadtested, so scalability is still a question.

Also, while the blockchain is resistant to tampering, systems to implement and use it are just as vulnerable as any others to hacking, programming errors, NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

You will be hearing more and more about blockchain,even from its traditional enemies like financial institutions.The only limit to blockchain applications will be human creativity,and perceived creepiness.Security risks of the core technology are manageable,but danger awaits in the ecosystem around the blockchain corrupt staff, malware The kind of data being considered for blockchain systems, from highly personal health information, to control of important physical facilities, may have consequences that far exceed the loss of money (breach of privacy, hijacking of infrastructure, etc.)

You will be hearing more and more about blockchain, even from its traditional enemies like financial institutions. The only limit to blockchain applications will be human creativity, and perceived creepiness. Security risks of the core technology are manageable, but danger awaits in the ecosystem around the blockchain. As always, people are the biggest threat!

Speaking of security challenges, how government can help in creating an ideal ecosystem?

Blockchain doesn’t need any law, it’s a self-executing agreement, but governments can get out of the way to let it flourish.

EXPRESS COMPUTER

Blockchain adoption is in nascent stage all over the world as well as in India, how CIOs in India can begin to adopt it for their organisation ?

There are public infrastructure that are open source and free. Like Ethereum, which is a platform for blockchain apps.

The open source platform is crowd-funded, and enables developers to create markets, store registries of debts or promises, move funds in accordance with instructions given long in the past (like a will or a futures contract) and many other things that have not been invented yet, all without a middleman or counterparty risk.

However, the main question is if you are going to rely on blockchain technology for your business, how will you take care of security challenges? Because, people who are big and powerful can overwhelm your blockchain. So, I would suggest a CIO to first buy a small amount of Bitcoin and use it to understand the process. It’s like apply what you have learnt.

Then list business processes relevant to your work that could be affected by the factors (e.g. disintermediation) made possible by blockchain technology, brainstorm whole new processes and applications that might be made possible by the blockchain. Also, list some risks involved in moving to the blockchain.

Start monitoring what your peer organizations are doing with the blockchain, and if it makes business sense, move some non-critical process to the blockchain, possibly in parallel with other technologies.

Lastly, how do you see the future of this technology?

Blockchain will always be around. I believe that the non-financial uses, such as health records of it will be even more important in the future than financial ones like Bitcoin rashi.varshney@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

45

OPINION SRIHARI GOPINATH HPE INDIA

REDEFINING ITCONFIDENCE: 3 STEPS TO TRANSFORMATION

I

Taking a full-stack view of the IT environment by starting with the biggest time-drain for IT teams is an excellent first step—one where your technology partner can support different hardware and software frameworks, and offer options that are a fit for overall data center requirements.

46

EXPRESS COMPUTER

t would be interesting to ask a large group of both Fortune 500 and smaller companies if their teams have “IT confidence.” Or, if they’ve achieved IT transformation, how would they define it, and how was it achieved?

Chances are, for those who claim to have such confidence in their systems, there’s at least some degree of overarching, automatic management, monitoring, and interfacing that has freed up IT administrators to focus on more specific challenges, creating a more stable, progressive environment.

It’s no secret that most IT administrators spend their days putting out proverbial fires and ensuring that the basic infrastructure remains up and running with minimal interference. This has been the nature of IT administration since systems became the guiding force of many organizations, and although many admins wish their infrastructure management meant more creative problem-solving and less “firefighting,” a lack of time and mission means this trend will continue if left unchecked.

In order to rebuild IT confidence in business systems, we believe that IT teams need to possess some degree of overarching, automatic management, monitoring, and interfacing that has freed up IT administrators to focus on more specific challenges, creating a more stable, progressive environment.

Here are three steps to get started on transformation and rebuilding confidence in your IT today.

#1 Survey the data center There’s a solution to this vicious cycle that prevents IT transformation, however, and once implemented, an IT organization that has spent so much time just keeping systems running can

focus instead on making systems run better. This leads to greater IT confidence up and down the stack, from the bare metal hardware, to the cloudbased leaps for applications that straddle or reside in the cloud, and the developer tools and application hubs.

It comes in the form of automation, and while it’s not exactly simple to get to the point of full-stack automation, the results are quite incredible. It just takes making the tough initial leap of surveying the data center landscape to gauge the extent of silos and developing a solid plan of action. Finally, you’ll need the middleware tooling to enable automation of everything from network management to system monitoring, workload optimization, and far beyond.

But this is oversimplifying the issue, since such assessments just to prepare for large-scale automation can take weeks or months. It’s also difficult to form generalized guidance for this part of the process, since every organization has evolved its data ingestion, storage, and computing infrastructure around how the larger enterprise functions.

Still, following this assessment, take a look at where IT teams are spending most of their time firefighting.

#2 Do a full-stack evaluation An internal evaluation might reveal that hardware systems maintenance, monitoring, and operation are massive time hogs, stealing away valuable system administrators who might otherwise be tuning infrastructure, researching upgrades, working with your preferred technology partner to expand services, or working on other innovative projects.

Armed with these insights, teams might look to tie-in a system automation NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

tool that can also serve as a workload manager, resource manager, and workload optimizer that has deep hooks in the hardware capabilities.

Taking a full-stack view of the IT environment by starting with the biggest time-drain for IT teams is an excellent first step—one where your technology partner can support different hardware and software frameworks, and offer options that are a fit for overall data center requirements.

#3 Get started with DevOps As another example, suppose that the developer teams are the bottleneck due to inefficiencies in the data center.

Following an assessment that reveals this as the grounding point for smoother IT operations, IT teams should start with a DevOps mindset and work backwards toward the systems themselves. Along the way, it’s likely that teams will find that automation tools to EXPRESS COMPUTER

IT teams should start with a DevOps mindset and work backwards toward the systems themselves.Along the way, it’s likely that teams will find that automation tools to enable developer productivity also have hooks in the efficiency and monitoring of the hardware systems

enable developer productivity also have hooks in the efficiency and monitoring of the hardware systems. The IT team can then work towards tuning the automation framework for developers (versus hardware).

Finally, consider that IT confidence generally means having accountability and a single place where teams can go to understand what problems exist and where their resources are best utilized for higher value projects. The goal is to redefine “IT confidence”: It’s not about having confidence that “things will just work,” it’s about having confidence that IT will perform and free up IT teams to do spectacular things that build even greater, farther-reaching confidence. This is true IT transformation.

- By Srihari Gopinath, Head of Marketing, Enterprise Group, Hewlett Packard Enterprise India NOVEMBER, 2016

47

NEWS ANALYSIS

Sterlite Technologies

Âť

STERLITE TECHNOLOGIES

SEEKS TO FLY HIGH WITH END TO END SOLUTIONS STRATEGY With a new and renewed focus on solutions and services around the core network, Sterlite Technologies is set to exponentially improve its market share

BY SRIKANTH RP

I

n the midst of a transformation phase, Sterlite Technologies, has been trying to transform its business model from being seen as a manufacturer of optic fibres, to an end to end solutions player. The first steps of the transformation were evident when the company announced completion of Elitecore Technologies’ merger, which is a global provider of Operation Support Service (OSS) & Business Support Service (BSS) solutions.

The acquisition of Elitecore Technologies is significant as it shows the company's intent to monetize a future which is increasingly going to be data and IP driven. For example, Elitecore has a pre-integrated platform that has the capability to monetize all IP networks including 3G/LTE, Wi-Fi, Cable, ADSL and FTTH. Building on the foundation of fibre The company already has a major market share in supplying optic fibre to telcos, and this is set to expand as almost all the major telecom players are rolling out their 4G networks, which requires a steady infrastructure in the form of optic fibre as the

48

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

backbone. In addition, with networks like the National Optic Fibre Network (NOFN) which is now being known as the Bharat Net, being rolled out aggressively, the demand for optic fibre remains huge.

With the voice market becoming saturated, the real growth is in data, and telecom operators have started investing in technologies that improve the quality of their networks. Broadband is also becoming a necessity, and with huge government focus on enabling digital initiatives, broadband will become a vital part of the country’s investment focus.

The other big factor is the huge push towards smart cities. With projects in all these sectors, Sterlite Technologies is extremely bullish on the opportunities But the real growth will come from the company's increasing focus on providing solutions and services. Explains Dr Anand Agarwal, CEO, Sterlite Technologies, "While our focus will remain on creating the digital infrastructure to support the increasing needs of data driven applications and networks, a big part of our strategy will involve focusing on designing, creating, maintaining and managing networks.

While our center of gravity will be infrastructure, we believe that there will be huge demand for companies that specialize in providing specific infrastructure tuned to applications which is a missing piece in the market today. With our end to end solutions capability, we believe that our addressable market size now has expanded more than 20 times than the market we were addressing till date.”

The focus on smart cities has started paying off. For example, Sterlite Technologies was recently awarded its first smart city project under the Digital India initiative for Gandhinagar to provide smart transport solutions, IP Surveillance, Wi-Fi connectivity. Sterlite Technologies will be involved in creating a Wi-Fi city, with applications such as smart lighting and parking. Sterlite is involved in creating close to 500 access points for Wi-Fi. In May 2016, the firm won the mandate for the Jaipur smart city project. In this project, the firm will set up citizen services kiosks equipped with environmental sensors and in installing and maintaining video surveillance equipment for ensuring public safety.

More importantly, Sterlite will be involved in maintaining and monetizing the network. The firm is bullish on the smart city opportunity, and is in talks with all the twenty states identified by the center.

The smart city opportunity

Betting on specialized networks

Using the optic fibre infrastructure as the foundation, Sterlite believes that it can provide services around the foundation.

The firm already has a smart city solution suite which is tuned for fast and future proof rollout, with seamless integration with legacy networks. Under this smart city solution initiative, Sterlite Technologies will offer complete program management, project execution and network integration from infrastructure management to network applications.

In the future, as data demands continue to grow, there will be a need for specific networks, that cater to specific industries. For example, a network in the defence sector, may need higher security.

With its expertise in building networks, Sterlite believes that there is a big opportunity for specialized networks. A case in point is the recently won Rs 2,000 crore contract from the Indian army, which involves connecting defence establishments with high speed optic fibre network.

EXPRESS COMPUTER

Similarly, there is the Fibre-to-theHome (FTTH) opportunity, where the firm has built a robust network that allows service providers like telecom operators or ISPs to use Sterlite's network to provide services on a revenue sharing basis. The firm already has more than 1,65,000 homes that have been connected on fibre using this technology.

Sterlite is positioning its network as a neutral network, which ISPs and telecom operators can use to save their capital expenditure and create a better 'last mile' access infrastructure. Sterlite stands to gain, as more and more services can be added on the network such as surveillance, cable television, DTH, healthcare on demand etc.

Understanding the specific requirements of developing economies like India, Sterlite Technologies has created unique solutions. For example, in many parts of rural India, power outage is a serious issue that hampers uptime. To overcome this issue, the firm has developed an innovative solution called “Reverse Power over Ethernet (RPoE) “that allows the network to function even if the power supply is lost.

Over the next 2-3 years, Sterlite believes that the market opportunity will rise exponentially, as the firm will be now involved in not only laying the basic foundation of networks using optic fibre, but also will have opportunities related to designing, creating, managing and monitoring networks related to smart cities and other specialist networks. srikanth.rp@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

49

OPINION THOMSON THOMAS HDFC LIFE

HDFC LIFE:

ACCELERATING ON THE DIGITAL HIGHWAY One of the few companies in India to adopt a holistic and comprehensive digital strategy, HDFC Life is today reaping the benefits. Productivity and efficiency has gone up by a significant percentage. Thomson Thomas, CIO, HDFC Life, shares with us the core elements of the digital strategy

T

he top digital initiatives taken by the company include the digital transformation program by the name of TEBT and mobility.

Technology Enabled Business Transformation (TEBT) program covers business transformation with an outside in perspective along with straight through processing capability for as many processes as possible.

The TEBT programme is organized into 3 major waves and multiple releases within each wave. The programme covers a transformation engagement, encompassing all the levers of Sales, Service and Marketing. The wave 1 focuses on Sales, wave 2 on Services and Marketing and wave 3 on Group Business.

TEBT, as a programme, was conceived as a transformation initiative that started with business process reengineering to address the simplification and standardization of all 50

EXPRESS COMPUTER

the key processes related to core insurance business functions. In order to enable these transformed processes be digitized and applications to be agile, a BPM software platform was included in the new technology stack along with a rules engine software, to encode/automate the workflow as much as possible. The Tebt programme is the foundation on which our mobility initiative has been built on.

The other initiative is Mobility, this is largely driven by rapid proliferation of mobile apps and these in turn effects how we do our business or interact with stakeholders. Implementing mobility successfully requires more than simply providing downloadable apps to employees, agencies and customers, we must truly ensure that we enhance the user experience and provide the functionality that users want and leverage the form factor of the device.

We have come up with few such

applications in this year which includes Tablet Applications (Mobile POS, Q&I, Mobile Sales Dairy (Lead Management System), FPT (Financial Planning tool)), Tablet & Mobile Applications (CMS, Group Calculator, Instalife (Health & Limited underwriting products), InstaVerify, InstaFR and InstaKit). These applications have been developed to meet the needs of the end user and make him more efficient and productive in his line of work. We are adopting a Mobile-first strategy where any application, functionality or service we create will be available on mobile first followed by the other form factors like browser etc.

The pillars of the digital strategy All our digital initiatives are based on our three pillars i.e. customers, partners and our employees. So for the ease of our customers and sales person we automated our whole front-end with the help of our mobility initiatives. At the NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

backend we are exploring many new digital initiatives like robotics, Optical character recognition (OCR), desktop automation to cut down on turnaround time for policy conversion and give our customers a better experience. The digital foundation is strengthened by working on robotics and Cognitive with OCR (optical character recognition) implementation in multiple work streams. We have planned to deploy OCR for NEFT – Payouts and Medical – Underwriting.

As a part of NEFT and Payouts the user at branch ops scans and uploads NEFT documents such as cancelled cheque / bank pass book etc. With OCR, required fields will get auto populated into core systems (which was earlier filled manually). An overall cost avoidance from resource optimization in NEFT amounts to approximately INR 20 Lacs.

In Medicals and underwriting where the OCR engine will run on scanned images of medical and pathology reports and fetch the fields automatically on output screen which in turn will save significant time for underwriters to manually compare each test value and give decision. An approximate savings of INR 20 lakh (savings from resource utilization improvement) is estimated with the roll out of the first phase. We are also evaluating cognitive abilities for our sales process.

For our partners, we have Service oriented architecture in our TEBT architecture. SOA gives our partners a direct channel through which they use our services like lead generation, quotes and illustrations directly. Also the data from their systems can directly be transferred to our systems.

Also for our employees, we have a mobile application by the name of MConnect which is basically for attendance marking. It has the following features: Mobile HR application enabling geo based attendance tracking; Geo fencing of branch and partner locations, enabling attendance marking in designated business areas and productivity improvement by saving EXPRESS COMPUTER

Our instaverify mobile application is unique as it is a kind of verification call which goes to the customer before the policy is issued.This is a first of its kind innovative solution in the industry enabling the customer verification process at the point of sale time to travel to branch locations for marking attendance

Impact and benefits The benefits of our mobility initiative are huge. Some of these benefits include: ● 32000+ Cancer Care Policies sourced through InstaLife which contributed to 71% of assisted business in March'16– one of its kind ● Overall TAT for Cancer Care policies reduced to minutes which was in days earlier ● The project has already delivered a net benefit of 3.37 Cr in FY16 and expected savings of ● 7.46 Cr in FY17, against a cost of 3 Cr. ● 99% Further Requirements (FR) upload is now done only by Sales – no support staff dependency ● 60% Sales force now own a Tablet for business purpose – new age sales team ● 3000+ proposals logged in on Tablet – End to end digital experience to customer ● Physical proposal form printing discounted since Sept 2015 ● Access to Business information and applications through mobile technologies from anywhere without being tied to a single location increases the productivity

● ■

■

■

Leaflet & Brochure printing reduced by 50% We saved 18 lakh forms & 1 form has around 8 pages i.e. 1800 trees (1 tree makes 8000 sheets of A4 paper) Saved 14 lakh brochure & each brochure has around 3 pages i.e. 525 trees Saved 25 lakh leaflets i.e. approx. 157

Pioneering digital initiatives Our instaverify mobile application is unique as it is a kind of verification call which goes to the customer before the policy is issued. This is a first of its kind innovative solution in the industry enabling the customer verification process at the point of sale.

Some features include: ● Audio script equivalent to what the call center agents would follow is played from the mobile ● Multilingual scripts for people who don’t understand English ● Design consideration on misuse prevention/detection (customer selfies during multiple stages of the process, face detection, hardware blocking (volume and audio jack) while playing the script, OTP generation and geo location tagging) This effectively ensures that we are able to eliminate the call center agent to close the verification process. The InstaVerify solution is so unique that some of the banks are planning to adopt it for their loan approval process.

Instalife is also a unique innovation in the sense that it covers the whole insurance lifecycle from lead generation to policy conversion right on your mobile. It takes 4 minutes to fill the form, post which the distributor proceeds to payment and the customer is covered. Furthermore, for customers who qualify within the prescribed insurance criteria, the policy is converted in an end to end TAT of around 15 minutes.

- As told to Abhishek Rawal abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

51

OPINION

www.expresscomputeronline.com

SHARAD SADADEKAR HDFC LIFE

HDFC LIFE:

BUILDING THE BASE FOR LONG TERM SECURITY We are looking at putting validation at the application and data level itself.

If this is achieved, there will not be any data related problems or threats, says Sharad Sadadekar, CISO and Vice President - Information Security, Governance and Technical Services at HDFC Life

A

s part of HDFC Life's cybersecurity evaluation and selfassessment based on NIST & FFIEC framework we have come up with certain projects with a three year road map. Presently, 60% of these are on green level. As the first line of defense HDFC Life has implanted Next-Gen firewalls. We have also implemented forensics on application side etc. For forensics, we have to be ready with logs.

Thus, in case of an attack, it can be immediately sent to forensics for detection. We have also implemented deep security solution. Normal SIEM solutions are not upto the level as well. For this, we went with a start-up for 1/10th of the cost and much greater value. Self assessment was done a year back. No one knew about FFIEC a year back. In insurance, we were the first one to carry it out. We read it, understood it and implemented it. For the entire HDFC group, we have a baseline for cybersecurity. The amount of effort we have put in has not been done even by banks.

We are also working on outsourcing partners. We have a model called Zero trust for third party vendors. They have to go through a certain process before onboarding with us. We have also implemented two-factor authentication, 52

EXPRESS COMPUTER

hybrid Internet and a solution for countering DDoS. Our DLP has also been upgraded. The earlier version was not supporting MAC users. Most of our leadership is on MAC which is supported by this new version. In our new office in Delhi, we have kept DLP on the Internet.

We are also considering AI for use-cases of chatbots and for quality and assurance where manual help is not required.

We plan to have GAP assessment. We will engage with third party consultants for this. However, in India teams are not ready to do it on the level we want it to, due to multiple reasons. Some of the main reasons are that there is low level of awareness and dearth of skill-sets due to lack of engagement.

One example which stands out recently for us among our security initiatives is that we had to send a digitally signed paperwork to one of the customers. In a short time, we were able to change the process, make it secure and integrate it with a printer and send the document.

Process driven security Around 3-4% of our IT budget is spent on security. Sometimes, we detect leaks that are genuine and are happening in realtime These are now detected early on and

we can stop them.

We actively engage with startups and the fintech community. I believe in working with the right company and helping them grow.

I believe in building from the base to ensure long term security. One has to plan it. It has to be a process driven thing, only then there is less effort required to come back out of an incident as visibility is much more. We are planning to implement APT, malware protection which will increase our visibility even more. For NAC, we have waited for over three years, as I do not want to create any overhead for the team. It has to be a framework based approach.

I believe, there has to be a protection of data across boundaries. It is a challenge as of now when it comes to boundary-less security of data or asset. If there is an asset or a file, it has to be protected wherever it is. Data should be open but with control within it to selfprotect. Once we have achieved it, then the threats will go down drastically. We are looking at putting validation at the application and data level. If it is achieved there will not be any data related problems or threats.

- As told to Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

BUSINESS AVENUES

EXPRESS COMPUTER

www.expresscomputeronline.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

53

OPINION

www.expresscomputeronline.com

NAFEES AHMED INDIABULLS HOUSING FINANCE

INDIABULLS HOUSING FINANCE:

USING DIGITAL FOR ENHANCING CUSTOMER CONVENIENCE IBHF's e-Home Loan platform puts customer convenience at the forefront giving them the freedom and flexibility to apply for home loan anytime, anywhere, says Nafees Ahmed, CIO, Indiabulls Housing Finance.

I

ndiabulls Housing Finance (IBHF) launched its E-Home Loan platform recently for end to end lifecycle of home loans online. In India it is the first of its kind - the customer is not required to visit the branch and the sales team is not required to visit the customer.

The application is available online. One can submit the required documents online, and also make the deposit. The sanction letter also comes online. The application is connected to Aadhar for eKYC information. We have also enabled E-Signing on the application. Since its launch we have generated around 6,000 home leads. We have trained our salesforce on this, thus, the number of applications is increasing steadily.

Hassle-free system The mortgage industry over a period of time, has seen people trying to leverage technology. But there has never been an end-to-end kind of a solution. Earlier a lot of manual work was involved and the processing time was around 10 to 11 days, which has now come down to 48-76 hours.

It makes a huge difference to the customers. They have 24/7 access and can process/submit the documents at ease as per their own convenience. It becomes a purely paperless process.

Sometimes there are as many as four 54

EXPRESS COMPUTER

applicants for one loan, which makes applying it online even a more hassle-free process. Earlier, in case of wrong documentation one had to chase the customer. Now, they can be notified easily through the system itself.

Even customers who do not have any physical branch in their cities can easily apply for home loans. There are NRIs who are applying through this platform. The entire digitization process took around two years. We had to make changes in our internal processes. We realized that there will be people who will work online and there will be others who will work offline. So we needed to support such hybrid mode on our system. We had to do a lot of R&D and needed to understand how to integrate these technologies into our online platform.

Innovative solutions With technology changing everyday, we have to go with the flow and adapt to it.

We look forward to providing innovative solutions to our customers and internal team. We are working to digitize billing, in-voicing, etc. Another initiative is our interaction with builders. It is a close relationship in this cycle of home loans.

We have provided platform to builders to upload their demand letters. We

forward these demand letters to customers. Earlier, this process used to take a lot of time.

When it comes to our internal workforce, their functions are also digitized. For example, the complete salesforce is on mobile. They can update the real-time status of their leads on their mobile applications. The mobile application is provided to collection people also. Whenever they visit a customer for collection, they can do it using the mobile application, so they do not need to come to the office to deposit anything. The technical verification team which goes on the field and checks the status of the property, is also enabled through mobile applications.

The team members can update technical verification on the mobile application. There is a special mobile application for customers as well wherein they can do a lot of activity leveraging the self-service mode. The applications are device agnostic.

The most important part of this entire digitization journey is to understand customer needs. Customer behavior is changing very rapidly and we need to keep up with it and make it convenient and seamless for them.

- As told to Jasmine Desai NOVEMBER, 2016

NEWS ANALYSIS

DHFL

» www.expresscomputeronline.com

DHFL USES DESIGN THINKING TO STEER INNOVATION The company is looking at using cognitive computing to get deeper insights into the requirements of the various stakeholders like customers and brokers

D

ewan Housing Finance Corporation Ltd (DHFL), one of India’s leading housing finance companies in the private sector is heading into the final year of its technology transformation programme, Tech2.0. A couple of years back, there was an understanding in the organisation that the current technology platform, which has served us well for many many years, is not going to sustain with our aggressive growth targets,” says Jayesh Shah, EVP & Head – Technology Initiatives, DHFL, Financial Services Group. This was the trigger for DHFL to undertake Tech2.0. The benefits visualised from the programme are – better customer experience, reduced turnaround time, improved efficiency, higher productivity – to future proof the organisation for another five years against technology obsolescence.

DHFL is partnering with IBM Global Business Services (GBS) in this journey.

They have set up a Programme Management Office (PMO) manned by a team of IBM GBS. Tech2.0 has two parallel tracks – one to upgrade the core applications to a contemporary technology architecture and two, to drive innovation.

It is under the innovation track that DHFL is running a PoC using IBM Watson Analytics. “We are trying out predictive analytics using the IBM Watson engine. The objective is to get EXPRESS COMPUTER

DHFLis excited about the concept of ‘Design Thinking’.

To enhance customer,partner & employee experience,we are working on an extensive portal design.We are working closely with IBM’s design thinking team to develop the portal design

deeper insights into our data and help the business take more informed decisions,” informs Shah. DHFL is a thirty two year organisation and has a large store of data generated over these years. The analytics engine of Watson is expected to derive deep insights into various aspects of operational efficacy and customer behavior. External data will also be pooled into the engine to enrich the insights. The company is in the second month of the PoC. To enhance customer, partner & employee experience, an extensive portal design is also being worked upon. “DHFL is excited about the concept of ‘Design Thinking’,” says Shah. IBM’s design thinking team is working closely with DHFL’s customers, partners and employees to develop the portal design through interactive workshops.

The exercise is to understand the demands after a deep consultative dialogue from all the relevant stakeholders and then create the platform design.

Shah is looking at Blockchain very closely. He believes there would be interesting use cases of Blockchain in a financial services organisation like DHFL. However, this is at a very nascent stage and would require further thought and deliberations. abhishek.raval@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

55

INTERVIEW BHASKAR BAKTHAVATSALU CHECK POINT

CHECK POINT SEES HUGE DEMAND FOR SECURITY SOLUTIONS With substantial growth in online and digital data, and numerous smart city initiatives by the Indian government, Check Point is witnessing huge adoption for its solutions in India. Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Managing Director, Check Point, India & SAARC, shares with EC's Srikanth RP, his perspective on the emerging enterprise security scenario in India What are some of the emerging security threats that are challenging businesses in India?

Network, Device, Content or Application based threats are here and we can’t wish them away. For enterprises threat vectors and complexity of attacks is multiplying by the day. On the outside everything seems normal till the day disaster strikes.

From attempting simple DDoS and network security breaches, malicious actors have become more organized and are a step ahead of the businesses at every stage. Hackers, individuals or organized teams, are now busy customizing malwares that trigger sophisticated DDoS, Phishing and other social engineering projects seeking to gain access to sensitive enterprise data or infrastructure.

As businesses lean on technology for business advantage, newer threat vectors are emerging. Today it’s not just external threats that an enterprise needs to contend with. Threats from within the enterprise are equally potent and potentially debilitating. And there is no time bar for threats. A disgruntled exemployee is said to have caused the Scorpene submarine data leak that is now threatening to bring down the Indian Naval Security preparedness overnight.

But not all actions are intentional or for that matter malicious. Even a wellintentioned worker can trigger a potential attack by merely clicking/ opening a seemingly innocuous email attachment.

Lastly as enterprises adopt BYOD in a big way, monitoring employee behavior on enterprise networks is an absolute 56

EXPRESS COMPUTER

security threats is an absolute must. In addition the framework should evolve with the growing business needs.

Periodic optimization of security infrastructure will also help enterprises detect and prevent more threats and lower the total cost of ownership on previous security investments.

must. People are after all the weakest link in any security infrastructure.

Despite huge advancements in technology, people still remain the ‘weakest’link. How do you think organizations can ensure processes that enforce best security practices?

Companies need to educate employees about security — teaching them about the dangers of phishing, unencrypted data and lax reactions etc. Training employees can turn a worker into a security asset, capable of helping detect threats, rather than a liability. Companies should try to clamp down on personal use of employer-issued devices to minimize threats or monitor the use of consumer devices inside the workplace.

A single security vendor / security-asa-service provider can be far more productive than a lone worker at even a security-savvy firm. It would emphasize on versatility and organizations can customize security that’s optimized for their organizational profile and needs.

A robust security framework that seeks to prevent and not just detect

From Check Point’s perspective, which are some of the most vulnerable sectors with respect to security in India?

No sector is immune to vulnerabilities today. Threat researchers say the number, sophistication and virulence of cyber threats continue to grow by day.

Malwares, bot communications to malicious file transfers are being used to attack Indian enterprises.

For instance, cybercriminals find retail outlets attractive as thousands or even millions of credit cards and consumer identities are housed deep within their networks. Hackers have good reason to expend their efforts on a retail target because these incidents are rarely reported in public domain as retailers fear negative publicity and loss of consumer confidence.

Banking and financial institutions too lack integrated technologies to prevent, detect and respond to threats in real time.

Here its more the case of left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Other than obvious reason of money; cyber criminals are attracted to banks and financial institutions as their biggest assets are mainly electronic and the vast amount of transactions and communications make them easily vulnerable to intrusion.

NOVEMBER, 2016

www.expresscomputeronline.com

The health sector is connected to the insurance industry and the drug companies.The data available in this sector is a big lure for any cyber criminal for identity theft,phishing attacks and ransomware The health sector is connected to the insurance industry and the drug companies. The data available in this sector is a big lure for any cyber criminal for identity theft, phishing attacks, ransom-ware and the like.

Even service providers and telecommunications companies are highly targeted by cybercriminals. And lastly the government institutions, both large and small, are easy targets for malicious hackers and insider threats.

Do you see enterprise security becoming a board room agenda today in India?

Enterprise security now comes under the purview of corporate risk assessments.

Boards are increasingly involved in security, but attention to cyber-security risk varies widely by industry. In many companies today, chief information security officers report directly to a company’s CEO or board.

The stakes have gone up and the consequences of having an enterprise security breach are high like Brand damage due to customer loss, loss of competitive advantage and high cost incurred for responding to a breach.

Companies are investing in hiring talent that is security aware.

How does Check Point see India as a market for its solutions? What have been some of your top selling products in India?

Indian companies are increasing their budgets on cyber security solutions to EXPRESS COMPUTER

combat the increasing incidences of cyber-attacks. Substantial growth in the online and digital data, smart city initiatives by the Indian government has pushed the Internet of Things (IoT) market and indirectly the cyber security space in India by leaps and bounds.

Security is not only about detection but it is more about prevention. Things are more proactive today with a huge demand for service related security solutions in India now. Our core focus is Threat prevention space across endpoint, network and mobile besides detection solutions.

Our channels capitalize on opportunities in UTM, Firewall and

threat prevention solutions. Our mobile threat prevention (MTP) solutions works across all smart devices. We have EDR for forensics too.

Our R&D develops everything related to security and that makes all the difference about a technology brand in the market. Check Point has always been a pure security focused vendor for over two decades.

We are getting newer partners coming up with new ideas. We believe in innovation with our technology and across our partner business. Every quarter we launch new offerings that keep us ahead of the technology curve.

NOVEMBER, 2016

57

INTERVIEW DR SRIHARSHA A ACHAR APOLLO MUNICH HEALTH INSURANCE

www.expresscomputeronline.com

“The demand for cyber security governance, policy and reliable business continuity measures are gaining importance to ensure streamlined operability of business processes and effective customer relationship management, says Dr Sriharsha Achar, Chief People Officer, Apollo Munich Health Insurance Company Limited. In a conversation with Ankush Kumar, he states the key security measures adopted by his organization

An Information Security governance framework is a must for the BFSI sector What are the key security measures that your company has taken for safeguarding data?

At Apollo Munich, we work hard to ensure that the data we hold is kept secure, and that we collect only as much personal data as is required to make our customer experience as satisfying as possible. We have adopted a holistic approach towards Information Security & Customer Data Protection by implementing cutting edge technologies such as Mobile Device Management, Universal Threat Management, End Point Encryption, as well as Data Leak Prevention to safeguard customer data.

We strive to be transparent about our security infrastructure and practices and reach out to our customers consistently to reassure them that their data is sufficiently protected with us.

What in your view are the biggest security challenges for your sector?

The BFSI sector is more vulnerable than any other domain - manufacturing, distribution or retail, as we have large IT infrastructure into which the data of millions of customers flows. There are two different angles to look at cyber security. One would be to consider it as a problem or as an enabler to enhance controls for information security and customer data protection.

The biggest challenge is that people read and try to adopt what is learnt from the information security mailers, but they will not implement these while accessing certain websites over the internet. People will click on a link in social media websites, but they would never click on in an email as the context is different on social media but the after-effects are the same. It is important to build understanding on the need for Information Security/ Data Protection and to build a security culture in an organization by spreading information security awareness across verticals.

Organizations are held for cyber security breaches, but unfortunately what is not known is that the actual root cause of cyber security breach is the user himself. We need to relook at organization wide information security 58

EXPRESS COMPUTER

programs, which provide a framework for ensuring that risks are understood and that effective controls are selected and implemented.

What do you think is the scope of cyber insurance in India?

The cyber space in the country is not at a mature level today. There is a thin line between protecting the data and outsourcing risk where at the end, the organization is at stake and has to own data breaches. The best way to deal with cyber crime is through measures to protect from risk.

Also, the nature of security breaches is such that losses cannot always be accurately quantified, even after they have occurred. However, looking at the future where losses due to data breaches and hacking would multiply, perhaps people should start thinking of cyber insurance too.

It is essential to have complete management support in order to effectively implement a security governance framework in an organization

Is the BFSI sector in India well prepared for handling new security threats?

Today a proactive approach towards security of physical assets, intellectual property, data, regulation, compliance and risk management is essential to ensuring customer confidence and relationship maintenance. Hence, the demand for Cyber Security Governance, policy and reliable business continuity measures are gaining importance to ensure streamlined operability of business processes and effective customer relationship management.

In order to maintain Cyber Security Governance issues in the BFSI sector, there should be a comprehensive Information Security Governance Framework, a holistic approach in mitigating risks, enhanced information security awareness programs for employees and senior management and a dedicated information security budget. Last but not the least, it is essential to have complete management support in order to effectively implement Security Governance Framework in an organization. ankush.kumar@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2016

REGD.NO.MCS/066/2015-17, PUBLISHED ON 28TH OF EVERY PERVIOUS MONTH & POSTED AT MUMBAI PATRIKA CHANNEL SORTING OFFICE, DUE DATE 29 & 30 OF EVERY PREVIOUS MONTH, REGD. WITH RNI UNDER NO. MAHENG/49926/90