Arun Bhandarkar

40 Sri Krishna Apartment, Flat G, 8th Avenue, Ashok Nagar, Chennai 600083, Tamil Nadu, India
 Phone: +91 98410 62632  E-Mail: prince.eternia@gmail.com

Summary
 A professional with 16+ years of experience in Project & Change Management, Business Analysis and
Product Management
 Embraced with the fundamentals of Banking, Insurance & Micro Finance Industries.
 An effective communicator with logical, reasoning and analytical skills.
 Proficient written and verbal communication skills.
 Strong inter-personal skills honed with excellence and strong work ethic. A sense of urgency,
commitment and focus on the right priorities to develop solutions in a timely fashion.

Skills
 Change & Transition Management  Product Management
 Business Analysis  Problem Solving Aptitude
 Coordination & Strategy  Project Management
 Implementation Management  Stakeholder Management

Entities Associated with, Last Role in the Organization and Period

 Equitas Small Finance Bank Ltd. (VP – Project Management - Digital Initiatives) Since 2016
 Equitas Micro Finance Ltd. (National Product Manager – Micro Finance) 2014 to 2016
 Royal Sundaram General Insurance Company Ltd. (Business Analyst) 2011 to 2014
 Royal Bank of Scotland Business Services Pvt. Ltd. (Change Manager) 2008 to 2011
 Abn Amro Central Enterprise Services Pvt. Ltd. (Business Analyst) 2005 to 2008

Education
 HSC from Shrine Vailankanni Matriculation Hr. Sec. School, Chennai, 2000
 Honors Diploma in Web Centric from National Institute for Information Technology, 2001 (NIIT)
 Bachelor of Commerce from R.K.M. Vivekananda College, Chennai, 2003
 Executive MBA from NIBM, Chennai, 2008
 EPGPBM from Loyola Institute of Business Administration (LIBA), Chennai, 2011

Certifications
 Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) [Credential ID 1138186 Valid Till Oct 2021]
 ‘Programme on Digital Financial Inclusion’ from Reserve Bank of India (CAG, Pune) (Sep 2019)
 ‘Challenges in Managing Inclusive Finance in India’ from IIM-Bangalore (Nov 2018)

Personal Profile
 Date of Birth : 15th July, 1983
 Sex : Male
 Marital Status : Married
 Languages Known : English, Hindi, Tamil and Konkani
 Passport Number : L7370826 (Place of Issue: Chennai | Date of Expiry: 26/02/2024)
Personal Snapshot
 Part of Winning team of ‘Kaizen Category’ of AU TVS Quality Quest Conference ‘21 (Digitization of MF Process)
 Part of Silver Medal winning team of ‘Quality Improvement Category’ of AU TVS Quality Quest Conference ‘19
 Recipient of ‘Certificate of Excellence’ from MD of Equitas at ABC in recognition of innovative ideas
 Represents the Bank at various National & International Conferences, meeting with Regulators etc.
 Part of Various Organizing Committees – ‘Ketchup’, ClubACE, Annual Events, ManCo & ExCo meets.
 Founder Member of RBS & Equitas’s Rock Band & Dance Teams, Avid Recreational Runner, Cyclist & Cricketer
Arun Bhandarkar Page 2  Phone: +91 98410 62632

Professional Experience
EQUITAS SMALL FINANCE BANK LTD., Chennai, India – “New Age Bank that gives children, youth,
families and business people across India a new and fun way to bank”
Vice President – Project Management (Digital Initiatives), March-2019 to Present
Reporting to Sr. Vice President – Product & BC Partnerships

Vice President – Product Management (Micro Finance), Sep-2016 to March-2019

Reporting to National Business Head

EQUITAS MICRO FINANCE LTD., Chennai, India – “A non-deposit-taking non-banking finance

company registered with the Reserve Bank of India that provides finance to the economically weaker
section of the society i.e. the unbanked population of the country”
National Product Manager, May-2014 to Sep-2016
Reporting to Chief Executive Officer

Key Responsibilities:

 Develop and manage Micro Finance & Retail Mortgage Products of the Bank
 Setup and manage Liability & Third Party Products of the Bank
 Ensure adherence to regulations, legal rules, guidelines and product norms
 Propose, create and implement efficient and effective company incentive schemes to galvanize staff
and boost company’s productivity.
 Work with Sr. Management to create & implement product roadmaps, translate ideas into strategies
 Close liaison with areas of the Business, Compliance, Audit, Risk, Credit, Ops & Technology to deliver
solutions and effect their implementation.
 Develop functional specification in liaison with Business, Ops and Technology teams.
 Produce and review Business Requirement Documents (BRDs), Change Requests (CRs), update &
upkeep Product Note etc.
 Manage internal & external stakeholder’s relationship including Business Partners/Vendors
 Identify various critical system gaps and propose feasible solution to rectify the same.
 Ensure products & releases are launched on schedule by monitoring & coordinating with stakeholders
 Extensively involve with end users to understand business needs, analyse and gather requirements
and document the same.
 Incorporating feedback and inputs from customers, partners, in-house teams on product strategy and
finding ways to expand product market reach
 Continuously review and assess system changes and/or customization to support any business
improvement initiatives.
 Keep abreast of industry news and trends by way of customer research, competitor watch and
literature review
 Gather, analyze & interpret external/internal data and transform into actionable business insights
 Create catalogs, Process snippets and training presentations that enhances the sales reps’
understanding of complex product features and help them sell more effectively.
 Conduct user demo and training on the newly launched projects to the branch users.

Key Projects : Recurring Deposits, Restructuring Loans, Atal Pension Yojana, Loan Originating
System (LOS) & Loan Management System (LMS) implementation, Banking Correspondent set up,
eKYC,, Tab implementation (Paperless), Digital Collection, Cash drop, Product implementation etc.
Arun Bhandarkar Page 3  Phone: +91 98410 62632

Selected Accomplishments:
 Led and launched following Products/Projects
- Recurring Deposit for Inclusive Banking customers (Application Used: Flexcube, iBoss, Wizard)
- Digital collections via UPI using interface of RazorPay, Setu (BBPS & Deeplink solution)
- Implementation of Core Banking System (Craft Silicon’s BR.Net replacing Temenos T24)
- Loan Restructuring product for stressed Micro Finance Loans in line with RBI’s prudential
norms on Income Recognition, Asset Classification and Provisioning
- End to End launch of Atal Pension Yojana Product & it’s Module
- Hospital Cash Insurance & Personal Accident Cover Insurance
- Insta MySavings a/c (Including production testing and scaleup of launch at 400 branches)
- Door Step Cash Deposit & Withdrawal facility in mobility devices
- Manufacturing and distribution of Piggy Banks for 2.5 million clients across 400 branches as
part of Bank’s strategy of generating Savings Account deposits through it’s Micro Finance
customer base. Also, created module in iBoss through IT to track distribution.
- Assisted CEO in Business Re-engineering projects like paperless electronic form capturing
(Application Forms, Form 60 etc.) through tablets, Bank credit of loan (cashless)
- Retail Incentive Automation project that required negotiation with various external vendors
(Harold Logic, SVS etc.), provision of requirement document (BRD), Testing (UAT)
- Engaged, negotiated pricing and offerings with external vendors (prepaid card companies like
Transerv, itzCash, iCash etc) for alternative collection and disbursement options.
- Ideated, Initiated and led a project to capture the villages and towns of 3 Billion Clients using
pincodes and Census 2011 data to enable classification of clients based on geography
- Ideated a project to capture and map latitude and longitude of villages/towns of customers as
a first step in building data required for demographic profiling of customers which could be
integrated with Credit Bureau data for identifying potential new untapped markets
 SPOC from Equitas for IFC (International Finance Corporation), PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and
Development Authority) and RBI (Reserve Bank of India) recognized SROs (Self-Regulatory
Organization) of NBFC-MFIs such as Sa-Dhan, MFIN (Micro Finance Institution Network) for arranging
all the required information, grant disbursements and periodical reports.
 Tied up with various Life & General insurance companies after price negotiation and finalization of
Standard Operating Procedure. Coordinated end to end implementation
 Additionally entrusted with responsibility to oversee preparation of Board Presentations, Business
Plan, Board Notes, Chairman’s Review presentation etc.
 Part of the adhoc committee that helped Equitas transition into a Bank and IPO launch.

ROYAL SUNDARAM ALLIANCE INSURANCE COMPANY LTD., Chennai, India – The first private
sector general insurance company in India to be licensed (October 2000) by the Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority of India. The company provides comprehensive insurance plans and innovative
insurance solutions to individuals, families and businesses across various categories.
Business Analyst, Dec-2011 to May-2014
Reporting to Regional Chief Executive

Key Responsibilities:
 Engage with business users to define business requirements and understand business issues faced
 Facilitate workshops with Branch teams to understand requirements and provide potential solutions
 Lead the delivery & execution of specific change initiatives as defined by Management.
 Working with teams across multiple geographic locations, workforces and key stakeholder groups.
 Conducting research, analyzing information, cost to serve models and reports.
 Produce timely, accurate & insightful management information & reports with research & analysis.
 Produce and deliver regular and ad-hoc MIS to support and inform business activities and decisions.
 Coordination of New Initiative Projects which may include rendering support for dealer tie ups, branch
expansion, incentive automation, process enhancement etc.
 Create pitch documents and presentations on behalf of management to present to client.
 Support in payout workings and processing.
 Arun Bhandarkar Page 4  Phone: +91 98410 62632

ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND BUSINESS SERVICES PVT. LTD., Chennai, India – Formerly known as
ABN Amro Central Enterprise Services Private Limited is a subsidiary of The Royal Bank of Scotland
N.V. It was incorporated in 2001 and provides information technology enabled services (ITES).
Change Manager, Nov-2009 to Dec-2011
Reporting to Program Manager (Sr. VP), India

Key Responsibilities:

 Manage End-to-End migration of Processes & Applications from onshore (Europe, US & Asia Pacific)
to India by building overall capacity which involves Identifying and Training Human Resource, Process
Mapping, Gap Analysis, IT Application migration, Risk, SLAs etc. by following Project Governance
 To ensure compliance with established time & budget constraints
 Ensure necessary project methodology steps are followed and the necessary documentation (Service
Level Agreements, Workbooks, BRD, Business Continuity Planning, Risk Documents etc) are in place
 Ensure that all projects are compliant within a defined framework and governance model.
 Assist to ensure that all projects meet all of its regulatory and compliance commitments
 Ensure that risk related items are anticipated, identified and mitigated at an early stage in the project.
 Identify opportunities for improving process and methodology.
 Where required, report and track costs apart from planning and tracking various project activities.
 Ensure effective project communication to all stakeholders
 Pro-actively ensure overall smooth delivery of the project

Selected Accomplishments:

 Setting up of a 67 FTE team that would centrally manage User accesses of Global users.
 Migration of AML Operations Transaction Filtering & Transaction Monitoring process for Asia Pacific &
ME countries like Korea, Thailand, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Australia, India & UAE
 Migration of AML Operations Client Screening activities for 35 countries
 Migration of Payment, Investigations & Reconciliation activities under Rightsizing Program for EMEA
countries

Business Analyst, Sep-2007 to Oct-2009 (Business Operating Model team that worked towards
Technical Separation of ABN Amro to create a new RBS Branch within Netherlands)
Reporting to Business Implementation PM, Netherlands

 Built SIPOCs of all Transaction Banking Processes of Abn Amro Chennai

 Worked in The Netherlands for 3 months on process design
 Responsible for Work Instructions for new applications
 Process Mapping and building processes.
 Sending MTS Reports to various Business Unit Heads at regular intervals.

Team Coordinator in a Data Quality Desk (Project Team), May-2005 to Sep-2007

Reporting to Implementation Manager, Netherlands and Head of Account Facilitation, India

 Responsible for assigning Global Identification Numbers for all the clients in an internal application
(Common Data Base)
 Responsible for Analyzing processes of various departments and identifying the defects.
 Implementing process improvements and providing remedies for the flaws in the processes.
 Maintaining record of the clients handled, meeting minutes and project documentation and reports like
Time Sheets, Progress reports, Trend Analysis, Statistics etc.
 Chairing conference calls on calls to branches worldwide to explain the processes and follow up until
the process is in place.