The branchless banking and digital payments network, PayNearby will be onboarding 10,000 women BC Sakhis from Self Help Groups (SHGs) to offer banking services to various Gram Panchayats in Uttar Pradesh.
The company aims to digitize transactions worth ₹1000 crores through the Self Help Group (SHG) ecosystem across Uttar Pradesh, while enabling BC Sakhis to earn additional revenue. PayNearby has entered into a partnership with YES Bank to onboard BC Sakhis across 9 districts in the state across Uttar Pradesh, viz. Badaun, Sitapur, Etah, Ballia, Ghazipur, Behraich, Balrampur, Gonda and Azamgarh.
The business processes and transactions that happen through SHGs are mostly cash-based. As of March 2019, an estimated ₹1,00,000 crore has been transacted within the SHG ecosystem, the bulk of it being in cash. Under the Uttar Pradesh State Rural Livelihood Mission (UPSRLM) program, the Government of Uttar Pradesh (GoUP) has decided to appoint one Business Correspondent (BC) – Sakhi (BC-Sakhi) from the members of the SHGs in each of its 58,000 Gram Panchayats.
The project is aimed at improving banking access in rural UP and enhancing the household income of these women and empowering them. Post the onboarding, PayNearby said it will work on upskilling BC Sakhis on the usage of the digital ecosystem while also providing them digital solutions to further the cause of financial inclusion across the state and bring many to the formal banking fold.
Anand Kumar Bajaj, Founder MD & CEO said, “Our country is going through a digital revolution and it is therefore important that we empower our women to lead this change. While the Business Correspondent model ensures low-cost delivery of accessible banking services to every section of the society, the SHG platform has proven to be pivotal in this task, owing to its comprehensive reach and influence at the community level.”
“The UPSRLM program is an excellent initiative by the government of Uttar Pradesh and PayNearby is extremely honoured to be a facilitator of this program and drive empowerment.” he added.
ICICI Bank on Thursday said it is “much better” prepared to restrict the impact of the second coronavirus wave on its operations because of last year’s experience but appealed for banks’ employees to be allowed to take vaccinations on a priority basis as they are rendering an essential service. The second largest lender warned that if banking services were to fail, it can have an adverse impact on the economic activity, and hence it is pertinent for ensuring that at least the branch staff is allowed to take vaccinations.
The comments come at a time when localised lockdowns are being announced across many pockets of the country in view of the rising COVID infections, which are breaching the 3 lakh mark daily and also resulting in over 2,000 officially counted deaths.
“We are an essential services… we are all exposed (to customers). We don’t have the luxury. But we are not allowed vaccinations, not allowed to board trains, not allowed to board buses. So, what kind of essential services we are? More push should be there,” its executive director Anup Bagchi told reporters.
He warned that if banking operations get affected, we may have to face an economic crisis as well after the ongoing health crisis, and cited the case of a single automated teller machine shutting down for seven days to illustrate his point.
There is a case for “higher sensitivity” when classifying essential services, Bagchi said, stressing that there are other essential services also and bankers exposed to customers in branches should be allowed to vaccinate because they are exposed to walking-in customers.
Starting May 1, the central government has allowed every adult the chance to get vaccinated. However, concerns are being raised about the efficacy of such a move because of lack of vaccine stocks.
Meanwhile, Bagchi said the bank is much better prepared to take on the second wave of the pandemic because it had a system in place to take care of the disruptions coming because of the lockdowns as compared to last year’s experience, where it had to overhaul things.
Bagchi said an end-to-end digital journey where there is no need for a physical touch at all is essential while extending banking services and after the announcement of the national lockdown last year, it had to work on ensuring the same.
Further to the same, the bank on Thursday launched a ‘merchant stack’ which will help deliver seamless banking services, including a zero-balance current account, instant credit, a digital store management, a loyalty programme and other value added services to the 2 crore merchants nationally.
Bagchi compared the new services akin to a master switch where the customers will not be forced to come to the bank repeatedly for newer services, and added that the bank has put in place a refined data analytics back-end which will take care of loan decisions based on dynamic data points such as the transactions happening at the merchant’s end, inventory before giving the working capital credit of over 6 months.
From a risk perspective, Bagchi said the bank has built a strong portfolio in the business banking side, where its ability to make use of the data it possesses has ensured that the credit costs are less than 1 per cent as against double-digit figures for some lenders.
Declining to give a target of the number of customer relationships they are looking at, Bagchi said the fintechs cannot offer an end-to-end service like banks can.
For ICICI Bank, revenues from the stack can flow from fees, interest on credit offtake, float on balances in the accounts and merchant discount rate, he said.
The United Forum of Bank Union (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, has called for a two-day nationwide strike on March 15 and 16 against the privatisation of Public Sector Banks and retrograde banking reforms.
Over 10 lakh bank employees and officers will participate in the strike.
All nine banks unions – All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers’ Congress (INBOC) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO) and the National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) will take part in the strike called by the UFBU.
Services such as deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance, and loan approvals would be affected due to the strike. However, ATMs are likely to remain functional.
Banks were already closed on March 13 (second Saturday) and March 14 (Sunday), leading to a four-day break in regular banking operations. Services such as deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque clearance and loan approvals would be affected due to the strike.
The strike comes after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman‘s Budget announcement where she announced the privatisation of two public sector banks (apart from IDBI Bank) as part of the government’s disinvestment drive to generate Rs 1.75 lakh crore.
Apart from bank unions, all the unions in four General Insurance Companies will be on strike on March 17. All the unions in LIC are on strike on March 18, while unions of four insurance companies have called for a strike against the privatisation of public companies.
Bank of Baroda announced the launch of banking services on messaging app, WhatsApp. The services offered by the bank via WhatsApp will be balance inquiry, mini statement, cheque status enquiry, cheque book request, blocking of debit card, information on Bank’s product and services, register/apply for digital products etc.
A.K. Khurana, Executive Director, said, “We are consistently working towards introducing simple and innovative banking solutions using latest technologies. With the growing prominence of social media, we believe that WhatsApp banking will offer immense convenience to our customers to meet their banking requirements.”
The key benefits engaged with the service are 24*7 availability of banking services, no additional requirement of application download, easy access and convenience to all customers, availability on both Android and iPhone at no additional service charge.
Non-customers can also use this platform for queries related to Bank’s products, services, offers, ATM & branches location. The familiarity and simplicity of the solution makes it convenient for the customers to avail banking services in a seamless manner via WhatsApp. How to activate WhatsApp Banking services
1. Register: Save Bank’s WhatsApp Business Account Number 8433 888 777 in your Mobile Contact list
2. Send message: Send “HI” on this number using WhatsApp platform and initiate the conversation
More businesses have started using online banking, and the dependence on brick-and-mortar branches has diminished considerably.
Prashant Ganti
Over the years, technology has reshaped business functions and accounting is no different. The impact of rapid advances in automation technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), integrated platforms, cloud-based software, and an explosion of data are felt in the finance world.
Here are a few trends to watch out:
1. Acceleration of cloud-based accounting
Cloud-based accounting solutions have played a major role in the successful transition to pandemic-induced remote working. We have seen several years of digital transformation in just a few months. Beyond enabling anywhere and anytime access, cloud accounting allows:
Systematization of remote collaboration, breaking the communication impasse between internal and external entities like accountants, CFOs and business owners.
Augmented productivity levels due to elimination of data entry and automation of day-to-day tasks.
Ability to glean cross-functional, real-time insights from multiple business sources and provide leading indicators into how a business is going to perform rather than having to pour over past historical information.
2. Technology-driven tax and reporting compliance
We will increasingly see adoption of GDPR model of compliance by design. The passage of GST and e-invoicing in India, VAT in the Middle East, and growing movement towards electronic invoicing in Europe and LATAM is a testimony to the fact that authorities across the globe are implementing technology-driven compliance with a threefold aim: reduce tax evasion, increase compliance, and retain flexibility to implement policy changes.
This means that internal business systems need to be future-oriented and not just address today’s compliance needs. This also has implications for other aspects of business and economy in general. For instance, the electronic authentication of invoices and tax returns done by revenue authorities can allow lenders to judge the potential of the borrower, which in turn could lead to a boom in lending easily.
3. Continuous accounting
In the past decade, we have seen two major technological changes—cloud and mobile. The cloud has ensured that the access to data is continuous, and mobile has allowed continuous transactions with the help of applications. Together, mobile and cloud have ensured that computing is continuous. Despite this advancement, accounting in many companies still works on a batch mode. Companies and accountants still set aside several days for period-close activities. However, today’s technology can help design financial processes that inheres within typical batch processing activities like financial close and continuous accounting, which ultimately results in operational efficiency.
4. AI will be well-entrenched in accounting
Today’s finance function is either uninitiated into AI or only uses limited AI. This is about to change. A pwc study says that a substantial number of financial decision-makers are investing in AI. AI has started playing a bigger role in accounts payable automation and spend management, primarily in the extraction of information from receipts and invoices, detecting fraud and duplicates, and automatic routing of invoices to the next stage of processing. This eliminates much of the data entry.
We can also see AI being increasingly used in AR functions like predicting the likelihood of a customer payment, and cash flow. Furthermore, AI will play a major role in the reconciliation process. All this will transfer a bulk of low-level tasks from the hands of accountants and other financial professionals to a computer, freeing them to contribute to more strategic initiatives.
5. Customer-driven finance and a new lexicon for accountants
Over the next few years, we will see the finance function step beyond its traditional focus areas of cost and compliance, and play a strategic role in the organization. This would mean that finance and accounting will have to be more customer-driven, designing all processes to keep the customer at the center.
This will require all back-office systems and finance to be deeply integrated with other business systems, arming every user, regardless of their role, with relevant information to serve the customer better. In addition to the traditional set of metrics, finance will need to adopt metrics that emphasize customer growth and experience.
6. Self-service finance-governed analytics
We will see the emergence of finance-governed analytics that brings operational, financial and transactional data together in a cohesive manner. With the aid of AI tools like natural language processing, CFOs, accountants and finance professionals can run queries on data spanning an entire organization, supporting operational and strategic decisions.
7. Emergence of the full-stack finance professional
With the evolution of no-code and low-code platforms, accountants and finance professionals cannot just suggest solutions, but also develop them using deep tech to help their organization, removing the over-dependence on IT. This, along with the emergence of self-service analytics, AI and other tools, have paved the way for a full-stack finance professional. A full-stack finance professional will be responsible for managing and minimizing risk and spending, adopting agile finance and maximizing effectiveness, supporting organization-wide decision-making, evangelizing financial shrewdness across the organization, apart from being tech-savvy.
8. Continued convergence of banking and accounting
Banking services have seen rapid development in the last decade. More businesses have started using online banking, and the dependence on brick-and-mortar branches has diminished considerably. Banking services are now being offered through mobile devices, and integrated banking technology is emerging. Accounting and banking are no longer separate entities.
Most modern accounting solutions offer bank integration, making account reconciliation simpler and faster. In the future, as more mobile accounting apps connect with mobile banking apps, business owners might no longer depend on their computers. They could accomplish their banking tasks right from their smartphones.
Prashant Ganti is Vice President at Zoho Corp. Views expressed are the author’s personal.
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