Gamification, hyper-personalisation and more in YONO 2.0, says SBI chairman

SBI chairman Challa Srinivasalu Setty.

State Bank of India’s YONO banking app is getting a tech upgrade ensuring an omnichannel experience for users along with ‘hyper personalisation’ of services, SBI chairman Challa Srinivasalu Setty has said of the mobile application whose new version has been delayed by almost a year.

YONO 2.0 is now expected to go live by June or July. The current version of the app is being improved every day and YONO 2.0 will be completely different, Setty told Moneycontrol in an exclusive interview.

“We are completely reimagining the tech stack and ensuring that it is an omnichannel experience when you come to the app. Whether you go to the branch or internet banking or YONO app, the journey is uniform,” Setty said, explaining the rollout delay.

SBI is also working on adding some customer value-added services including customer protection in the YONO 2.0.

“Customer education is also something we are building into the app. The app would extrapolate how a customer’s financial actions can impact his/her credit score,” he said.

The app would also have a “green score” calculator. “If you have a smartwatch and doing some transactions, how much you are actually contributing to the reduction in the carbon footprint is something we are working on,” Setty said.

The bank is also adding layers of gamification, hyper personalisation and other elements into YONO 2.0, the SBI chairman said.

Setty also said work is underway to ensure that the quality of customer service improves across channels. “We serve 520 million customers, and service not only at the branch level. We have to look at the digital channel and the new forms of customer service points which have come now,” he said.

India’s largest public sector bank is the market leader in handling UPI transaction volumes. “We handle 180 million transactions every day, with a technical decline of 0.1 percent,” he said.

He was quick to dismiss the view that many customers see public-sector banks such as SBI as unapproachable even today. “Perception and reality can be different. We want to dispel this perception (on customer service) by providing quality service and not just talking about it,” he said.

The banking sector, especially, the public sector banks are the frontrunners when it comes to customer protection. “We need to ensure that the customer is protected,” he said.

SBI has put in place a system to ensure constant feedback from customers. “We have constituted the largest feedback mechanism from the customers today in terms of customer CSAT scores, net promoter score and so on,” Setty said. “A lot of effort is going on to dispel this perception. I don't agree that our quality of services is inferior to anyone.”