As a part of its decision to be future-ready, State Bank of India (SBI) is all set to rechristen itself to ‘Only Yono’ as a separate digital entity and will revamp its current mobile application.
In a period of almost 12-18 months, SBI is planning the revamp which will include migrating the existing Yono customers to Only Yono.
Yono Will Make SBI A Complete Digital Bank
According to a notice by the bank seeking consultants for this initiative, with a leaner and modular architecture, more streamlined journeys, sleek and personalized customer-centric design and capturing value from ecosystems, Only Yono will make SBI ready to launch a complete digital bank.
In order to cater to a defined customer segment, banks have experimented with the idea of opening separate digital entities. This has enabled them to provide more targeted approach than ever before. Full-stack digital banks, a new segment of regulated entities, were recommended by Niti Aayog in their discussion paper released in November, 2021.
For such banks, currently there is no separate licensing arrangement by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), but lenders want to be prepared if and when the regulator floats such a proposal.
The Concept Of Digital Banking Not Yet Established
Although the concept of digital banking has not been established in India and is defined by individual banks, SBI believes that the Niti Aayog discussion paper regarding the licensing of digital banking may result in official regulatory guidelines. Launched in 2017, Yono exceeded 70.5 million downloads as of 31 March 2021 and had a user base of 37.09 million.
Earlier, the bank was actively seeking to evict Yono from its then-existing chairman Rajnish Kumar in September 2020 that it could recover more than $ 40 billion. However, the bank has not yet implemented the scheme. At the time, Mint reported last December that Jio Payments Bank, a 70:30 joint venture between Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and SBI, could see its official launch delayed as the company continues to operate with its business model.
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