‘Chalo Aage Badhe’ with AU Small Finance Bank

With the tagline ‘Chalo Aage Badhe’ AU Small Finance Bank is aiming high in the Indian Banking market as a newbie. In April this year, it recently re-launched itself from non-banking finance company (NBFC) after going through a strict process of the Reserve Bank of India. Earlier as an NBFC it was mainly focused on retailing sector, which primarily served low and middle income individuals and businesses that have limited or no access to formal banking and finance channels. It received a license from the Reserve Bank of India to set up an SFB on December 20, 2016.

On the lending side, the company has three business lines—vehicle finance, micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) loans and small and medium enterprise (SME) loans.

Currently bank has 258 branches by next March, the bank expects to have 500-plus branches which will offer all products. It has also opened its doors to public and has fixed a price band of Rs 355-358 an equity share for its initial public offering.

‘This IPO was more of a necessity than a choice and that’s why the OFS (offer for sale), we don’t need capital.’ says Sanjay Agarwal, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of the newly formed bank.

Ashish Saxena, Chief Technology Officer, AU Small Finance Bank

While talking about the transition phase, Ashish Saxena, Chief Technology Officer, AU Small Finance Bank says ‘The whole journey of the transition has been very interesting and it was a learning phase for us. Of-course it was a daunting task to set up whole IT infrastructure especially for a banking entity.’

AU has already taken some technology initiatives and tied up with number of technology firms to meet up the right technology solutions to serve right. ‘It was very important for us to choose right technology partner and we have invested specifically in our IT infrastructure to be able to provide quality service at low costs.’ Says Ashish.

AU has entered into a master services agreement with Accenture Services for the implementation and integration of IT systems including a core banking solution, internet and mobile banking solutions, mobile applications and enterprise risk management systems.

Ashish tells us that AU has partnered with Netmagic Solutions, Acidaes Solutions for CRM solutions. AU also has already entered into internet services and net banking segment also. ‘We are taking services of Oracle to provide internet banking services.’

Other strategic partnerships are—Newgen Software Technologies for workflow based loan origination and collections system and cheque truncation solution. This is coupled with system upgrades to support the increased number of branches and increased volume of business. Servion Global Solutions for the development and management of a CISCO contact centre solution.

Euronet Services for the monitoring of ATM services including card management, digital banking, fraud management services and back-end services. Sify Technologies for the design, implementation and management of network infrastructure. Servion Global Solutions for the development and management of a CISCO contact centre solution. Integrated cash dispensers from AGS Transact Technologies and NCR Corporation and automated cash recyclers from Hitachi Payment Services.