SBM Bank to launch neo-banking platform

SBM Bank India, which is the wholly-owned subsidiary of State Bank of Mauritius, is focussing on technology to reach out to customers and is set to launch a neo-banking platform.

“We are launching neo banking. We have tied up with a fintech,” said Neeraj Sinha, Head – Retail and Consumer Bank at SBM Bank (India), adding that the bank is looking at collaborative banking in other segments as well where companies may have access to large number of customers but do not have a banking licence. “We are piloting with fintech Pay Nearby. We have launched a service called Nivesh, which is a recurring deposit platform,” Sinha told.

SBM Bank India was the first foreign bank in India to obtain a banking licence from the Reserve Bank of India to operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary in January 2019.

“The attitude we started with was that we want to build a bank in India as a fintech with a banking licence. Unlike other foreign banks, we have decided to go the whole hog. The most difficult choice was the strategy we wanted to do,” said Sinha, adding that the pandemic and lockdown have proven to be a big leveller as to some extent it does not matter how many branches and ATMs a bank has. As part of its strategy, the bank is focussing on providing top-of-the-line services to the affluent and emerging affluent in India and their counterparts would be NRIs with relations in India.

“We are careful about the segment we go to, we are not choosing the mass or the super affluent segment. We want to work with the affluent who need to be treated as a super affluent, but needs a lot more guidance,” he said. The bank has over 8,000 customers and seven bank branches and five ATMs.