Dimension Data powers 60 digital branches for State Bank of India

MUMBAI, INDIA: Dimension Data said that it has enabled State Bank of India(SBI) with 60 digital branches pan India, known as sbiINTOUCH. These digital branches offer advanced banking services such as instant loan approvals, assistance in choosing investment portfolios, access to latest mutual funds etc.

“As India’s largest bank with over 16 crore transactions per day, 25,000 branches and over 730 million customers, SBI has unique challenges to stay relevant and provide the right solutions to our diverse clientele. We have constantly innovated using transformative technology to bring our customers closer to the Bank," said Mrutyunjay Mahapatra, Deputy Managing Director and CIO, SBI.

According to an analyst firm, 70 percent of customers and prospects will choose a competition service provider if an expert is not present at the delivery channel when and where he makes an initial inquiry regarding a product or service. This segment of customers is predominantly the tech savvy generation, which SBI also wanted to attract. "Today’s customer is well informed and tech-savvy, and do not believe in the concept of time-consuming processes, with digital branches, we will be able to provide them with that,” said he.

By launching sbiINTOUCH, SBI can address these concerns and provide better services to their customers.  

In line with the Bank’s plans to carve deeper inroads into the digital era, Dimension Data set up Digital Branches and enabled SBI to create a virtual pool of experts and specialists, co-located in strategic centres or dispersed across the organisation. Equipped with the latest technology, it provides SBI’s users with an immersive audio and visual experience with the added ability to print, scan and share the document using touchscreen controls. It helps create an instant connection with the customer in real-time, thereby ensuring that SBI doesn’t lose a potential customer.  

The solution will help make banking a lot more personalised for SBI’s customers with a superior virtual non-transactional banking experience. It brings together leading technologies in the areas of telepresence, collaboration and customer experience. This, in turn, will help the bank expand its reach along with increasing profitability by intelligently connecting the bank’s experts with the customers.  

“Banks need to constantly strive to innovate and differentiate themselves to maintain customer loyalty. The solution will enable SBI to transform its communication model for better customer loyalty which will further help SBI improve sales, cross-sales and in upselling. As for the SBI customer, this will ensure that he/she gets the right advice for all non-transactional processes. Added to that, it will further help the Bank enhance its customer experience which in turn will become its important competitive differentiator. All of this technology rides seamlessly on state of the art nationwide digital infrastructure that we manage for the Bank,” said Kiran Bhagwanani, CEO, Dimension Data- South Asia, Japan and New Zealand.

Currently in the pilot phase, the solution implemented in the sbiINTOUCH branches are spread across 21 states and 60 sites, some of which are in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Indore, Shimla, Pune and Patna to name a few.