SBI-Accenture unveils digital branches

For the first time in India, you will get a debit card in just 10 minutes after opening a bank account. But for this, you will need to visit any of the digital branches of the State Bank of India in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

In an effort to attract Gen Y, the bank, in association with Accenture, launched six digital branches across the nation on Tuesday. Named ‘SBI INTOUCH,’ the new branches are located at Mantri Mall & World Trade Centre in Bangalore, Express Avenue in Chennai, Phoneix Mall in Mumbai, Himalaya Mall in Ahmedabad, and at South Extension in New Delhi. The seventh branch at the City Centre in Kolkata will be launched on Saturday. The New Delhi branch was inaugurated by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday.

Digital stores The bank terms these branches as digital stores, which will provide the facility for instant in-principal loan approval and an interactive dream wall to aid customers in conceptualising their journey toward realising their financial dreams.

The Chairperson of SBI, Arundhati Bhattacharya, said once the eKYC (Know your customer through electronic documents such as Aadhar) process is completed, the customer will get a personalised debit card with a chip in it.

These branches will also offer products of other SBI group companies, such as mutual funds and insurance. “Depending upon the response we get, we will expand. We will also have a smaller version of these branches in malls. There will be little bit of variety in the branches we open,” she said. These branches will function from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. At present, the SBI network has over 13,000 traditional branches spread across the country and abroad.

The bank engaged Accenture to develop the digital business strategy for its branch programme. Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.

It helped the bank in designing the branch layouts, implementing the digital processes and technology at the branches, and providing back-end integration, including training employees. “This is the bank differentiator. This is something which is quite innovative. This puts SBI ahead of others,” Piyush Singh, Managing Director and Head of Accenture’s Financial Services Operating Group in India, said. SBI was not seeing this as a cost initiative but as a differentiating initiative, he added.

“The level of service is much higher; the ability to centralise expertise in central area and access for all the branches is much higher. So there are very obvious and visible advantages from the cost point of view,” Singh added.

COMMENT NOW