The Hindu Business Line : City Union Bank seeks TCS help for datamining

Chennai, Dec. 2 While visiting a small town branch, a thought struck Mr Narayanan Kamakodi, the Executive Director of City Union Bank. He pulled out a list of the branch’s big-money depositors and checked out how many of them were also in another list of people to whom the branch had sold life insurance policies (LICs). He found only six names common to both the lists.

That is how things work in a typical branch. A sales pitch for a third party financial product is made to customers who happen to walk into the branch, rather than by a conscious effort to seek out potential buyers. “Business is done more on convenience than by focus,” observes Mr Kamakodi. “A scientific data analysis is not being done, unlike in new generation private sector banks,” he told Business Line.

This, despite the fact that City Union Bank is among the more hi-tech among the old generation private sector banks. It was among the first few to computerise branches. Today, all of its 180-odd branches are under core-banking — the bank’s uses TCS’ ‘Quartz’, and was TCS’ first customer for the product.

Mr Kamakodi found the visit to the small town branch very revealing. Since “only 5 per cent of my clients look to us for insurance products,” City Union Bank is now asking TCS for software to help it use its database better.

The bank wants to profile its clients to find out their needs. For example, a customer may already be insurance-covered, but what about the rest of his family? Another customer may have just retired. Would he like to put some of his gratuity money into a mutual fund?

Last year, City Union Bank earned Rs 4 crore from selling life insurance. Mr Kamakodi reckons that it is possible to raise this number to Rs 50 crore within four years.

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