Vol. 19 No.

11 March 2021 `75

Pages 84

Know Your Software pg 26

Crypto Wars pg 70
GPFI Report pg 72
Finnoviti Keynote pg 78
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Venus at Work
The HER Formula
Habits Emotional Intelligence Risk Taking
u u

March 2021 - Vol. 19 No. 11
Group Publisher
Group Editor
: Babu Nair
: Manoj Agrawal
Editor : N. Mohan
Editorial
Mehul Dani, Ravi Lalwani, V. Raghuraman
Research Editors
V. Babu, Ratnakar Deole,
W.A. Wijewardena, Sanchit Gogia,
K.C. Shashidhar, Dr L.S. Subramanian,
Ajay Kumar
Advisor-Alliances
Ateeq Siddique
Marketing
Kailash Purohit, Dhiraj Mestry,
Dhara Thobani, Rohit Kahar, Aditya Arya
Events & Operations
Shirish Joshi, Stalin Saldhana,
Pramod Jadhav, Ashish Verma,
Wilhelm Singh, Sneha Agrawal,
Samata Mestry, Ramesh Vishwakarma
Design
Somnath Roy Choudhury
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Editor’s Blog
Manoj Agrawal
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Women Reveal their
Success Factors
Dear Friends,
I am pleased to share
with you a truly special issue
of Banking Frontiers.
Why is it special? Well,
we have always noticed
and have frequently been
told that our content and
conferences are dominated
by men, with very few
women participating. We
always felt bad about it, and
it has been really difficult to
correct this imbalance. So, when we heard about International Women’s
Day (March 8) coming up, our minds opened up to the opportunity. The
result is in front of you.
The cover story has 29 participants who are all top-level women executives
in the financial sector, and the 30th is our project manager Sneha Agrawal,
who interviewed all these women. We present their experiences and expert
advice on 3 topics – Habits, Emotional Intelligence and Risk Taking. Each
topic has 4-6 sections. There is actually a huge volume of wisdom that these
women have collectively shared. Such breadth and depth of insights in one
place on women empowerment is probably very uncommon.
Apart from what the women have said, we will be analyzing their
responses vis-à-vis their past and current backgrounds to see if there are
any patterns. We will share that in the next issue.
Apart from the cover story, our editorial team has interviewed 23 other
women who share insights about the business, technology, marketing,
communications, HR and other aspects at their organizations. We also
have several news items about how different organizations celebrated
International Women’s Day.
For me, this is the finest piece of journalism I have produced in my
entire media career, and I truly appreciate everyone who has been a part of
this work.
This kind of sharing will surely open doors for better times ahead for
each of us. Do spread this issue among women in your circle who aspire to
break through the glass ceiling.
Banking Frontiers March 2021 3
 N E W S Regulator
Brazil ensures autonomy for its central bank
Brazil has enacted a law
to establish the autonomy
of the country’s central
bank and make it free
from political interference.
President Jair Bolsonaro
has signed into law a new
legislation to this effect.
The law does not change
the way the central bank
sets interest rates but
cushions it from politics
by setting fixed four-year
terms for its governor and
directors that will no longer coincide with the presidential election cycle. The bank’s
president will also no longer be part of the cabinet of ministers. The monetary authority
already had de facto autonomy to implement policies deemed necessary to achieve
its inflation-targeting goals, but the bank president was technically a member of the
cabinet appointed by Brazil’s president. The new law stipulates that the bank’s secondary
objectives after fighting inflation include ensuring the stability of the financial system,
smoothing fluctuations in the economic cycle, and promoting full employment.
Saudi Arabia to have a
new instant payments
system
The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) said the
country’s new electronic instant payments
system designed to make the Kingdom less
dependent on cash will become functional
on 21 February. SAMA will supervise the
new system which, it said, would contribute
to the country’s economic development
by increasing the speed and efficiency of
financial transactions in the corporate and
retail sectors. SAMA believes this step will
ensure improved transparency of payments
between companies and individuals,
and options for customers to carry out
immediate financial transfers between
accounts in local banks, with lower fees
than current interbank transfers.

Australia may have a digital currency soon Weidmann re-elected

The Reserve Bank Australia is working on an Australian version of bitcoin. The to head BIS
Governor of the central bank Dr Philip Lowe said Australia could one day have its
own version of the digital currency with investors increasingly searching for alternative
systems. He revealed the central bank is conducting research on the technologies and
policy implications of a potential wholesale central bank digital currency, adding the
big banks in future could exchange money via a new digital currency instead of doing
transactions in Australian dollars. This could use distributed ledger technology to
support the settlement of transactions in the inter-bank payment system, he said. He
also said the central bank’s in-house Innovation Lab is working on a concept. It is
understood that the Reserve Bank’s Bank and the Payments System Board want to
design a digital currency for both the public and private sectors.

Pakistani banks told to encourage net, mobile banking Deutsche Bundesbank’s President Jens
The State Bank of Pakistan has decreed that all local banking institutions should Weidmann has been re-elected as head
offer a set of minimum services for internet banking and mobile banking. The central of the Bank for International Settlements
bank says it wants to encourage and promote the use of digital platforms for settling (BIS), the central bank of central banks.
transactions. It said in a circular that banks should provide minimum set of services The head of Germany’s central bank will
on their internet banking and mobile banking channels including bill payments, serve for a third 3-year term as chairman
funds transfer, beneficiary management, limit management, credit and debit card of the board of directors at BIS, the Swiss-
management, stop cheque payment etc. Also, the banks will not levy any activation, based international financial institution
subscription or annual charges on their customers for using such services. The central that links central banks together. His
bank feels digitization of transactions may be hindered if customers can only make new mandate will start on 1 November.
payments to those who have registered with their own bank. To better facilitate their Weidmann took over at the BIS from
clients, Pakistani banks have been asked to make the appropriate arrangements to Christian Noyer, who was the Bank of
ensure that their clients are able to perform online payments to as many billers as France governor, in November 2015. The
possible, the circular from the central bank confirmed. 18-member board, which meets at least
6 times a year, decides the institution’s
4 central banks in tie-up to develop common CBDC strategic and policy direction. The Basel,
Central banks of China, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong are exploring Switzerland headquartered BIS is owned
the development of a common digital currency for cross-border payments. The Hong by 62 central banks, representing countries
Kong Monetary Authority and the Bank of Thailand had worked together to study the that account for about 95% of global gross
application of central bank digital currencies recently and they are now expanding domestic product (GDP).

4 Banking Frontiers March 2021

 BizTech Opinion
Open Banking Breathes New Life To Personal Finance Management
W
e are three months into 2021 and
the financial world continues to
be abuzz with Open Banking
and its many possibilities. Leveraging the
implications of the opening of banks to
Third Party Providers (TPPs) opens up
a world of opportunities for banks and
financial institutions looking to redefine
customer experience (CX) for a digitally
charged world. To quote Gartner’s Top
Strategic Technology Trends 2021 Report
it will be the enriching of the “total
experience”, which includes customer and
user experience, that will help organizations
capitalize on COVID-19 disruptors. This
is especially true for banks and financial
organizations whose main differentiator
is CX.
Personal Finance Management (PFM)
is one such use case of Open Banking that
brings immense potential for banks seeking
to amplify their CX. With the help of digital
transformation, banks can now focus more
on customer value and experience. The
enabled customers need improved facilities
to manage their expenses and savings in a
better way. For the banks, PFM becomes an
essential offering to enhance CX. With the
help of Open Banking, PFM can integrate
with more than one bank accounts and
create a single view of finances in a single
interface! This will provide a new lease of
life for Personal Finance Management, and
better informed decision making for banks.
Not just PFM, but total financial
discipline-now possible with
Open Banking
Open banking now enables banks to
empower customers and cater to their
individual needs. By cross-referencing
customer account data with other banks
under customer consent, financial
institutions can harness so much more.
From analysing customer spending habits,
tracking cash flow to offer intelligent alerts
and customized product recommendations-
your bank can transform how customers
manage their personal finances in today’s
fast paced world!
At Clayfin, our PFM solution has
evolved to offer PFM features such as
goal-based saving, gives your customers
the option to save based on their personal
aspirations. Meanwhile, the innovative
multi-bank PFM enables customers to
check their consolidated net worth, analyse
their spends and define budgets-all in a
single application and with a few swipes!
With social interactions gaining
prominence in banking, we have brought-in
innovative features such as social and family
banking. Whether it is splitting expenses,
sharing memories or tagging friends, your
customer’s financial management is now
socially relevant as well. Similarly, financial
management for the entire family is now
possible with a single PFM application.
Creating family budgets, saving for shared
goals, or delegating regular payments to
family members becomes easy.
“Open Banking has made
banking truly digital, with ability to
integrate data from multiple financial
institutions. The customer is in a better
position to get a comprehensive view of
the customer’s finances and financial
institutions can offer services on top of
that. All this without compromising on
security, confidentiality and with the
customer’s explicit consent,” said Rajesh
Narasimha, CEO, Clayfin.
RBI-licensed Account
Aggregators enable secure
single view across accounts
In India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)
has licensed Account Aggregators (AAs)
for the secure potability of trusted data
between financial service providers with
the consent from customers. By facilitating
structured financial data sharing from
Financial Information Providers (FIPs)
to Financial Information Users (FIUs),
AAs are certified consent custodians. They
perform the all-important functionality
of enabling customer enjoy a single view
across accounts, while in complete charge!
Speaking on the role of AA’s, Munish
Bhatia, Co-Founder, Finvu, said,
“Fintechs today are in forefront of digital
transformation. I’m glad that we at Finvu
have taken the lead in India’s open banking
initiative as an Account Aggregator and
partnered with Clayfin to offer our state-of-
the-art, world class Account Aggregation
infrastructure for their Multi Bank
PFM product.”
PFM-the catalyst to drive the CX
revolution!
It’s an undisputed fact that we are living
in an Experience Economy! The digital
wave has brought banks and financial
institutions into a new and different set of
challenges. Banks are transitioning from
being mere transactional providers to
experience providers. They are quickly and
efficiently rising up to meet the challenges
of customers wanting experience-driven
services, tailored recommendations,
built-in social interactions and so on.
Leveraging digital tools such as multi-
bank PFM is helping them amplify the
CX quotient!
Banking Frontiers March 2021 5
 Women-Centric
Changing Male-dominated Narrative via Financial Literacy
K
otak Mahindra Bank has 4 strategic
business units - consumer banking,
corporate banking, commercial
banking and treasury - catering to retail and
corporate customers across India. Elizabeth
Venkataraman, Joint President, Consumer,
Commercial & Wealth Marketing, stresses
that the bank has seen a steady increase -
both in terms of acquisition of new women
customers as well as their contribution in
value terms.
RECENT FINSERV DEMANDS
There has been 93% increase in leads and
47% increase in visits for personal loans on
Kotak website after SEO rank improvement
and personalization. Elizabeth discusses 2
customer profiles - homemakers and salaried:
“Homemakers continue to invest in safer
options like FDs and gold; on the other hand,
the risk-taking capacity of the working segment
is increasing and the segment’s constituents
have also started regularly investing in mutual
funds especially through the SIP route.
Apart from the above, specialized health
insurances/general insurance products and
equity investments have also started gaining
popularity among women.”
Kotak Silk, the bank’s program
exclusively for women, is designed
keeping the above factors mind. Helping
women in their journey towards financial
independence is one of the key pillars
of the program and Elizabeth says the
focus is on this key emerging need among
women through initiatives around financial
education and imparting information
among women and giving them access to
networking opportunities.
Kotak Silk program provides women
with the best offers in finance, dining,
health and lifestyle, empowering them to do
more. It is designed for the banking needs
of today’s women - financially informed
women. A customer enjoys higher debit
card withdrawal limits with no annual
fees on Ace Accounts. Using Kotak Silk
Debit Card, customers can spend without
worry, anywhere, anytime. “A Kotak Silk
customer enjoys a special 35% discount on
locker rentals for the first year, discount
on best compliments card, and gets a 50%
6 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Elizabeth Venkataraman
discount on the issuance fee on this card,”
says Elizabeth.
All the Kotak Silk customers have
access to the bank’s mobile banking app,
which offers a convenient and secure way
for customers to digitally transact using the
180 plus features.
CHANGES EXPECTED
Elizabeth maintains that there are certain
changes in demand for financial services
that are expected among women customers
in the next 2 years. “These are likely with
regard to investment knowledge and
education, simple, safe tools for investment,
convenience, flexibility and customization
when It comes to product and services.
The changes are expected in terms of -
de-jargonised communication, with simpler
processes. Home finance is a major area
where such changes are expected,” she says.
WHAT WOMEN PREFER
Women prefer simpler, safe investment
tools, and are more inclined towards saving/
investing towards specific goals, she says,
pointing out that products like FDs / RDs
have been favored by them traditionally.
“However, in the last few years, we have
seen women customers, especially the
salaried base, also opting for mutual funds
and health insurance for self and parents,”
she adds.
She Is The Change
Kotak Mahindra Bank has been creating
financial literacy campaigns, including
online, targeted at women customers. “We
conduct regular online and offline events
across India wherein speakers from the bank
discuss financial literacy and education. We
have also introduced a full series of video-
based tutorials on digital banking adoption.
This is available on YouTube as an easy
playlist. As part of Parichay program, we
have organized various women financial
literacy sessions at individual Kotak bank
branches,” says Elizabeth.
The bank has started conducting an
informative education series on financial
matters for customers of Kotak Silk, under
an initiative called ‘SheisTheChange’.
Started on 6 March, the webinar features
leading female financial experts, who
enlighten Kotak Silk customers on financial
independence through saving, investments
and financial behaviour. The 30-minute
session is followed by a Q&A round where
the expert clears the doubts that the
attendees may have.
Says Elizabeth: “Women are often
dependent on male members of the family for
financial advice. Through this initiative, we
want to change this male-dominated narrative.
Why shouldn’t a woman take control of her
money matters? Women today are making a
mark in every field. They have every right to
take charge of their finances in the way they
like. SheIsTheChange calls upon all women to
lead, take charge of their financial matters and
make well informed financial choices.”
The webinars are going to be interactive
and explanatory and will help in calming
the financial worries of Kotak Silk patrons.
The first chapter of the series featured
chartered accountant Rachana Ranade,
who talked about the basics of investing.
The second chapter, being aired on 17
March, will feature CFP Shweta Jain, who
will speak on financial planning for women.
Kotak Silk has also launched a website
dedicated to financial knowledge - www.
silkmoneymatters.com. The website
features financial tutorial videos, articles,
and webinars.
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
 Gender Balancing
Tilt towards women borrowers
Capri Global Capital offers products that are fine tuned for women and
incentives for regular repayments:
W
hile the estimated annual
requirement for financial
support to women-owned or
managed enterprises in India is $29.16
billion, the annual supply of credit to them,
from all formal sources, is estimated to be
the only $9 billion. Capri Global Capital,
a diversified NBFC, started responding
to this need in 2010-11. Divya Sutar,
Group Head, Strategy, Culture & Talent
Management, explains: “We have found
that there is a significant gap between the
demand for financial support to women-
owned enterprises and the supply in
providing a line of credit to them. We
believe that investing in women’s economic
empowerment sets a direct path towards
gender equality, poverty eradication and
inclusive economic growth. We intended
to create a separate sub-section for female
borrowers to gradually bring more Indian
women into the financial forefront.”
From April 2020 till Jan 2021, women
borrowers for housing loans accounted for
8.5% of the overall 11,702 housing loan
accounts, whereas for MSME loan, women
borrowers made up to 4% of the total 14,631
MSME loans.
CUSTOMERS INCREASE
Capri Global Capital, operating in two
major verticals – MSME loans and housing
finance - has a strong network of 80 offices
spread across 8 states. The company
is backed by a committed workforce of
1477 employees and there is an active
relationship with over 25,000 customers
as of Q3 FY21.
The company has been fulfilling the
capital needs of the businesses ranging
from retail outlets to small manufacturing
units, traders to private schools as well
as individual borrowers. Divya provides
details: “The average ticket size of the
MSME loan is close to `1.5 million, whereas
for housing finance the average ticket size of
the loan is at `1 million.”
The company’s business model
enables it to transform lives of women and
Divya Sutar indicates that
‘Wishwas’ loan product
has been acting as a
game-changer for women
entrepreneurs seeking credit
for their business expansion
empower them across spheres of life. In the
last couple of years, it has launched various
schemes, which have special provisions for
the empowerment of women. The number
of its female borrowers has increased in the
last 3 years. These have been mostly small-
ticket loans by women from the bottom of
the pyramid for a variety of small businesses
and other self-employable avenues.
RISING PORTFOLIO
Fo r F Y 2 0 1 9 , t h e c o m p a n y h a d
approximately 700 customers for housing
loans, which increased to approximately
1000 in January 2021, an increment of
nearly 43%. Similarly, among MSMEs, it
had approximately 450 customers in FY
2019 which have increased to 570 in Jan
2021, an increment of 27%.
Says Divya: “We have seen significant
growth in borrowers’ numbers despite the
slowdown in business due to the pandemic.
As much as 90% of our housing loans
and 93% of SME loans have women as
co-borrowers. Out of the 987 housing loans,
there are only 13 accounts from April 2020
to January 2021, which have been tagged
as NPAs. Similarly, out of the total 570
women SME borrowers, only 9 customers
are tagged as defaulters.”
Capri Global Capital is targeting to double
its women borrowers for housing finance
and MSME loans by 2023. “We are trying to
achieve 15% growth for our women borrowers
in the housing finance category by 2023 and
targeting 10% growth for our MSME women
borrowers respectively,” says Divya.
EMPOWERING WOMEN
The company has designed a loan scheme
called ‘Wishwas’ through which it aims
to help women across the country gain
access to the credit system and encourage
the entrepreneurial spirit among them. To
derive benefit from the scheme, a women
borrower has to be the primary applicant.
The loan scheme offers a secured loan up
to `4 million for business purposes only.
The repayment period will be as short as 18
months or as long 10 years.
“Considering women-owned enterprises
offer around 10.24% of total employment,
we believe a positive intervention in the
MSME sector can only further help increase
women’s participation in the economy.
Our loan product has been acting as a
game-changer for women entrepreneurs
seeking credit for their business expansion.
The concept is at the heart of a broader
innovation plan that we have at the forefront
to empower small businesses. To encourage
the women borrowers, we have introduced
a special offer of EMI waivers at various
stages of the loan for those who maintains
an excellent track record (ETR) for the entire
tenure with pre-defined criteria: 3 EMIs
waived off at the end of 3rd year of regular
payment of EMIs; 5 EMIs waived off at the
end of the 5th year of regular payment of
EMIs and 10 EMIs waived off at the end of
the 10th year of regular payment of EMIs.”
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 7
 Insurance for Women
Sizeable opportunity to hyper-personalize
insurance products for women
The biggest motivation for women to save is to give their children a
better future:
S
onia Notani, Chief Marketing
Officer, and a founder member at
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co, has
handled a well-rounded portfolio across
functions and verticals over a decade
at the company. Currently, she heads
the company’s marketing, products,
customer experience, PR, strategic
alliances and direct and digital sales
functions. She has made it into Fortune
Magazine’s ‘40 Under 40 – 2019’ listing
that acknowledges India’s brightest
business minds. She has also been
named among the ‘Super 30’ – CMO
Honor Roll by IAMAI and iProspect in
2019 in recognition of her contribution
towards charting the course of IndiaFirst
Life’s brand journey. ASSOCHAM,
has recognized her contributions to
the Indian life insurance space with
the ‘Women Leader in Insurance –
CSO’ award. As a thought leader, with
extensive expertise in the BFSI space,
Sonia continues to carry the ‘forthright
substance’ baton through her zealous
participation in panel discussions, to be
part of a dialogue-based ecosystem while
raising awareness around life insurance
as an important risk protection tool. She
talks at length about women customers.
Mehul Dani: What percentage of your
customers are women? What percentage
of your overall business comes from
women customers? How have both these
figures changed over the last few years?
The life insurance penetration rate
in India continues to be one of the
lowest across the globe at 2.74% as per
the annual report by IRDAI. Within
this limited segment of the insured
population, women are an even smaller
section. According to the Census of India,
about 48% of the Indian population is
female; yet women purchased only 36%
of the life insurance policies issued in the
country, in 2019.
8 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Sonia Notani has run
interesting campaigns for
women customers associated
with her partner banks,
distributors and also on social
media
At IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co,
approximately 23-25% of our customer
base is women policyholders. This has
been a steady state for the last 5 years or
so and we haven’t seen any significant
movement. This is even though insurance
companies work on risk-based pricing
and assessment factors that vary for men
and women. It is seen that all other factors
remaining constant, premium rates are
likely to be more economical for women
versus men. However, on the other hand,
fewer women have strong independent
financial standing, making them eligible
for a lesser amount of risk coverage or
sum assured.
What is the level of life insurance
penetration among women and what
could be the drivers to improve the
penetration?
The life insurance penetration rate in
India continues to be one of the demands
for financial services and is dependent
on the ability to earn and save. India’s
Gross Savings Rate was measured at
31.4% in March 2020 vis-à-vis 30.6%
in the previous year. The savings rate
determines a household’s ability to allocate
money across financial instruments versus
utilization for consumption. While we see
an improvement over last year, the rate had
reached an all-time high of 37.8% in March
2008 and has been declining since then.
Women account for less than
20% of the total labor force in India.
Recent payroll data collected from the
Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation
(EPFO) in 2020, shows the marginal
decline in women participating in the
formal workforce versus the previous
year. This further echoes the sentiment
by the International Labour Organization
(ILO) that the pandemic will widen labor
market inequalities, and countries may
lose some gains made in previous years
on women’s work participation rate.
These macro-economic indicators are
not very heartening or promising. The
socio-cultural ethos does not encourage
women’s participation either. Even
amongst leadership, we see only 8.9% of
firms have women in top management
positions and only 3.7% of CEOs and
Managing Directors of NSE-listed
companies were women in 2019.
In line with the same, we cannot
expect demand for financial instruments
or services to be meaningful until we
can influence and impact some key
macroeconomic factors that enable
women to have both, disposable income
and an ability to save.
We need some key macroeconomic
indicators to change to instill a very core
ability to earn and to save. Apart from
this, I do believe we have tremendous
opportunities to inform and educate
women on the power of saving and
investing for the future of their loved ones.
What is the financial thinking among low
income, rural and urban economically
backward women?
This group comprises domestic
workers, vegetable vendors, menial labor,
farm workers, etc. We see that women in
this category contribute financially to
the household, however, it is extremely
meager and there may be a debt trap. In
2019, we surveyed 5500 women in low-
income rural, semi-urban households
and also conducted 6 focused group
discussions. Interestingly,
(i) More than 70% of customers take a
loan or break their savings to meet
their expenses. They tend to visit a
hospital 3-4 times a year.
(ii) 65% of the customers are willing
to invest `100 a week. Some also
suggested that they are not confident
if they can save `500 a month as most
of the time, they end up spending the
money on unforeseen events. While
the absolute math is the same, they
would prefer an instrument to save
their money every week.
(iii) More than two-thirds of respondents
saved for their child’s future. This was
a very clear motivator to save money.
The above research outcomes indicate
that these women are inclined to save
despite having a meagre income and often
being in debt. The biggest motivation for
women to save is to give their children
a better future. They also do not have
confidence in their holding power and
prefer small regular instruments to save
with. Women in the low-income category
also see wage loss as a significant deterrent
to getting formal health treatment in
the wake of illness. Hence, we can look
at capital assured, risk-free financial
instruments that have a medium to long
term pay-out to meet education goals
for their children. They also need risk
protection against health expenses and
wage loss due to health exigencies, which
can be provided by appropriate insurance
tailored for them.
What is the financial thinking among
urban, educated, middle to upper-
middle-class women?
In this segment of society, awareness
and education play the biggest role. Here,
there is adequate income to earn and
save. However, the importance of key
financial instruments and the role they
play in their lives is missing. Women do
not perceive themselves as independent
or primary bread earners. This plays a
deterrent in taking financial decisions
especially the worth placed on self to
protect the risk of loss. However, with the
advent of digital and electronic mediums,
there is an opportunity to educate and
drive better financial knowledge and
investments. There is an opportunity
to purchase pure life cover, unit-linked
investments, and assured long-term
products for financially independent
golden years.
Again, here the contribution to the
bigger picture is extremely relevant.
Increasing women’s labour force
participation by 10 percentage points
could add $770 billion to India’s GDP by
2025! IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co today
boasts of having 40% women in its core
Management Committee. We hope to see
more equal opportunity and labour force
participation driving economic change
and leading to a shift in demand for
financial services.
Compared to men, what financial products
do women prefer more and prefer less?
Women have relatively lower
participation in the financial decision
making of a household, irrespective of
their income generation and contribution.
In the middle-income group, historically,
a larger set of women are perceived to be
investing in standard bank fixed deposits,
PF and some in endowment insurance
plans. Women are seen to prefer goal-
based plans. In lower-income groups, we
have seen a massive transition in terms of
credit and lending - with self-help groups
gaining precedence. A few institutions
such as SEWA are also enabling small
savings and insurance. In the high-
income group, we see a divide amongst
women who are extremely market savvy
and helming institutions in the BFSI
space to those who have the economic
and social standing but limited personal
finance exposure.
However, the flip side is the
opportunity to customize products for
these women. Within the gender, there
is an opportunity to hyper-personalized
with specific products - for example,
tailored loans for women entrepreneurs
embedded with credit protection
insurance, enable middle-class women to
get a return upside with calculated risks
and to plan for their health and retirement
needs, for high-income group women
to understand wealth management, risk
protection and legacy planning given they
do have sizeable assets.
Have you conducted any studies to identify
financial thinking among women?
We have conducted 2 detailed
studies to understand the mindset and
Banking Frontiers March 2021 9
 Insurance for Women

disposition of women on savings and
risk protection. In 2017-18, we did detail
primary research and a white paper along
with ASSOCHAM where we studied
buying behavior, investment habits and
orientation towards various life insurance
products. This survey was administered
women respondents in tier 1 and tier 2
centers. The learnings were included to
enhance our product features and benefits
apart from publishing widely to increase
knowledge and understanding. In 2019-
20, we partnered with Women’s World
Banking to enable structured insight
and applicable outcomes for our women
customers. Here, we not only surveyed
5500 socio-economically backward
women, but also used the insights to
develop 2 structured product prototypes
and do a test marketing for inputs
and feedback. We also incorporated
the inputs and submitted them to the
regulator as a part of one of our micro-
insurance products in 2020. We will be
taking this effort forward to develop and
market structured products customized
for women segments.
What parameters in your evaluation
system are more prominent for women
customers than for men customers?
We are a life insurance company, and
hence, for us, insurable interest, ‘human
life value’ and premium paying capacity
are some of the key parameters that are
taken into consideration for financial
underwriting towards providing risk
protection through insurance. Some key
assessment parameters include annual
income earned, occupation, education,
need for insurance, and complete existing
insurance details. Specifically, in the case
of homemakers (usually women) who
have no income sources; we ask for details
of spouse or parents’ insurance.
Have you created any financial
literacy campaigns targeted at women
customers? If yes, please share content
samples.
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Co has a
stated mandate of ‘Insurance for all’.
We work across customer segments, be
it demographic or socio-economic, and
currently service 98% of the pin codes.
We are working hard to personalize our
solutions as well as our communication
for distinct customer segments.
We have run interesting campaigns
for women customers associated with our
partner banks, distributors, and also on
social media.
(i) Mother’s Day Campaign: For
Mother’s Day, we got out the message
that securing the needs of the family
comes instinctively to mothers and
how investing in a life insurance plan
for their family could just be another
important addition to the same. To
get the idea across, we worked on
the insight that a mother’s way of
expressing her love and affection
is often not direct. She shows her
love in her ways, by taking care of
you. For example, a mother asking
whether you’ve eaten food is one way
of showing her concern and care.
Using this insight, we ran a campaign
to tell women, that they’ve always
prioritized their loved ones and
how life insurance is also a big step
in the direction of protecting their
family and educating them about the
importance of investing in one.
(ii) GPP Campaign for Women:
Our efforts also reflect across
our products. For the launch of
the IndiaFirst Life Guaranteed
Protection Plan, we rolled out special
messaging that made it relevant
to women. The independent and
confident woman of today is adept
at multi-tasking, and our approach
was to simply remind her that the
security of her loved ones is also in
her hands. A good insurance plan
will therefore ensure that she can
protect the promises she has made
to her family. We play the role of a
friendly expert she can rely on. The
campaign was promoted through
digital mediums like social media,
Google ads and e-mailers to women
target audience.
(iii) We have also designed customized
one-pagers for women customers
across key products.
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com

N E W S
Exim Bank honours policewomen in IWD Additional Commissioner of Police, North region and the bottles of

I ndia Exim Bank felicitated policewomen of Mumbai in 2 events as

part of the bank’s International Women’s
Day 2021 celebrations through an initiative
honey were handed over to policewomen in the presence of Dilip
Sawant, ACP of North Zone. The second
event was held at the office of Additional
called ‘Protect the Protectors’. This was a Commissioner of Police, West region, where
mark of appreciation of their endeavors while Harsha Bangari, Deputy Managing Director
on duty during the pandemic times. The of the bank met the policewomen in the
policewomen were presented with organic presence of Sandip Karnik, ACP of West
honey. The bank said under the Ayurveda zone. The bank procured from Under The
system honey is shown as possessing unique Mango Tree, a social enterprise which is
nutritional and medicinal properties. supported by the bank under its grassroots
The bank coordinated with the office of initiatives for development.

10 Banking Frontiers March 2021

 Customer Engagement
A million on Facebook & 2 lakh on Twitter
Punjab National Bank has extensively and judiciously used both
technology and language skills to serve and engage customers:
S
hikha Sharma is a professional
banker with over 37 years of
spectacular experience in banking
and currently General Manager and
Chief Learning Officer heading the
Learning & Knowledge Management
Centre at Punjab National Bank, India’s
second largest public sector bank with
Rs18 trillion business and over 100,000
employees. More than 35% of staff of
the bank has been trained under her
leadership in this financial year and 25%
more are expected to be trained in the
coming quarter. She holds a Bachelor of
Science, Bachelor of Education degree
and is a Certified Associate of Indian
Institute of Bankers (CAIIB). She is also a
Member of Governing Board of National
Institute of Banking Studies & Corporate
Management, Noida.
Punjab National Bank created a
portal for its employees in 2006 which
was termed as the Knowledge Center,
where all the employees will be provided
access to the information related to them
like employee attendance, promotions,
examinations, the performance of the
employee and most importantly their
payrolls and other important circulars.
Employees can also check the reasons for
deductions and manage almost everything
through this portal.
LEADING THE CHANGE
“A customer is the most important visitor
on our premises. He is not dependent on
us; we are. He is not an interruption in
our work; he is the purpose of it.” This is
how Mahatma Gandhi characterized the
quintessential approach to customer service
and engagement and it is equally applicable
to the banking sector. Shikha Sharma says
being one of the leaders in banking with
a history of 127 years and customer base
of 180 million plus, Punjab National Bank
has undergone digital transformation with
a congenial digital system integration,
unified digital environment, real-time
visibility, enhanced security features and
increased productivity.
Shikha Sharma points
out that Punjab National
Bank has undergone
digital transformation with
a congenial digital system
integration, real-time visibility
and enhanced security
features
Coming from an organization that
prides itself in gender diversity and many
other merits like having women in all
key departments like customer service,
IT division and the top management,
Shikha says there are 2 key necessities in
banking - ease of banking services and
customer friendly bouquet of financial
products. “We at the bank have extensively
and rather judiciously used both the
technology and language skills to serve
and engage customers across the country
including remote areas.”
PNB ONE VERY SUCCESSFUL
PNB ONE is the bank’s mobile banking
app that is now available in both English
and Hindi. Shikha claims that the app
is one of the most successful and easy to
use application that provides the entire
banking on one’s palm. “In fact, PNB
ONE has seen a huge acceptance among
customers due to its simple operational
aspects and great navigational qualities,”
she says.
ATM, SMS IN 11 LANGUAGES
The bank has enabled customers to
have technological engagement with the
bank through e-lobbies where he can
walk in and perform transactions like
cash withdrawals through an ATM, cash
deposit through cash deposit machines,
passbook printing, cheque drop etc. The
bank has also equipped its ATMs and
SMS services to interact with customers
in 9 regional languages, apart from
English and Hindi. Shikha says this
helps to make these channels friendly
and comfortable to the users. Also, the
call centers provide round the clock 24x7
services to customers in a language of
their choice. The bank also has a chatbot,
PIHU, which is well accepted.
SOCIAL MEDIA PRESENCE
Shikha says the Facebook page of the bank
is accessed by close to a million people,
while the bank’s Twitter handle is followed
by nearly 200,000 people for constant
updates and offers. The best-in-class
e-services like PNB One app and PIHU
chatbot are very well accepted.”
CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS
The digital transformation, which the
bank undertook over the years, has not
only consolidated the bank’s presence
in most far-flung locations but also
helped in financial inclusion efforts.
The bank has won various awards and
accolades for its new initiatives. It has
been improving operating efficiency
across key financial and productivity
metrics. Shikha explains: “Our relentless
effort over the years to match the top-
notch digital transformation has helped
us to meet customer expectations, which
has been accentuated by the recent
global pandemic.”
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 11
 Communication Strategies
CorpComm in Overdrive
Shefali Khalsa, Head - Brand and Marketing at SBI General Insurance
& Flovie Martins, Head, Corporate Communications at Future Generali
India Life Insurance Co, discuss the corporate communication & PR
trends in the insurance industry:
Ravi Lalwani: How has the corporate
communication / PR role changed in the
last 12 months in your organization?
Shefali Khalsa: The environment in
which we operate has undergone rapid
changes including the media landscape.
Traditional print media was once ruler, but
now social and digital platforms are fast
becoming consumers’ top choice for media
and information intake. The changes in
the work environment have added layers of
intricacy to the communicator’s role.
Corporate communications now
play a more critical role in developing
and implementing strategies to control
the narratives and manage the truth-
trust-transparency paradigm. It has now
become more and more aggressive and
layered. In the current context of virtual
normal, everything is in urgent demand.
Digitization has scaled up the working
standards resulting in the best coordination
and cohesiveness. Taking cognizance of
the current scenario, the need now is to
interact daily with internal and external
stakeholders.
Communication patterns are changing
today. For instance, earned media is not
limited to journalists but also extended to
employees, influencers, bloggers and third-
party affiliates.
Flovie Martins: The unprecedented
coronavirus pandemic situation jolted
and forever altered life as we knew it and
lived it. Among other industries across
the globe, media and PR communications
were also one such industry whose entire
ecosystem faced a shockwave and resulted
in adapting to a new world of change. When
the lockdown and social distancing norms
were announced, there was an overnight
adoption of digital news platforms as people
wanted to be updated on the pandemic
situation in real-time. Pandemic-related
headlines dominated the news globally, be
12 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Shefali Khalsa reveals that
employees, influencers,
bloggers & third-party affiliates
play a crucial role in corp
comm activities
it any news topic. Hence, it was only logical
to transform the previously adopted PR
strategy to fit into, ‘the news topics of the
day’. This transformation also needed to be
done fast as after a point everyone would
be speaking the same language. Realizing
this, our organization was quick to adjust
to the new environment. That meant
adapting to the lockdown phase and our
every media activity had an element linked
to the pandemic. For example, we started
with announcing the launch of a helpline
number to get authentic information
amidst the chaos. Complimenting this
was educational articles related to varied
topics on the pandemic and that was in
line with our business goals, like real estate
optimization, marketing and HR-related
requirement for transformations and
adoption to the pandemic situation.
Can you share the top 3 corporate
communication / PR initiatives taken by
your company?
Shefali Khalsa: I can say the top 3
initiatives undertaken by us during the
lockdown were a new brand identity launch,
an uninterrupted campaign and creation of
insurance awareness.
New brand identity launch: We
realized that there is a need to communicate
that we are ready to serve not just urban
India but also Bharat (rural India). We
launched the new identity and the brand
promise, which serves the traditionalist
and modernist customers. We went ahead
as per plan during the lockdown as we
were confident of the trust and credibility
our brand commands. Moreover, we had
a comprehensive PR plan that considered
all possible emergencies and exigencies.
Launching the brand on the schedule
was important to us because, amid all the
covid-19 chaos, we wanted to assure our
customers that SBI General was with them
through thick and thin while also keeping
ourselves updated on the changing needs of
evolving times. This was a welcome change,
not just for the brand’s external image but
also for the company’s internal perception.
#BAUUninterrupted campaign: As
soon as the lockdown was announced, it left
many people confused and uncertain, and it
was essential for us as a brand to assure our
customers of our presence and availability.
Due to a tested robust Business Continuity
Plan (BCP), we were able to transition
to digital modes of working seamlessly.
We were making all possible efforts to
communicate this to our stakeholders and
thus the #BAUUninterrupted campaign
was designed. With this, we announced
that we have adapted newer and digital
ways of working, so our day-to-day
operations continue seamlessly and without
inconvenience. Each function head reached
out to his or her stakeholders to assure them
of how that function is working smoothly.
Insurance awareness campaign: On
insurance awareness day, we launched
an engagement campaign on Facebook,
Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. We asked
users to tell us their favorite movie scenes
that could have been protected by general
insurance and why.
We also got a piece ready by a spoken
word artist and shared it on social media.
It reached the youth and explained general
insurance very simply. This could be easily
understood by a wide section of people. We
introduced the ‘GI Simplified’ section on
the website. It has blogs, AVs, and FAQs
on general insurance products. Through
this, we aim to explain general insurance to
people and thereby increase awareness.
Flovie Martins: We launched a
public awareness medical helpline and a
WhatsApp chat facility to dispel myths
around the coronavirus and provide
authentic information from verified
sources. This was a significant and much-
needed PR campaign at the time to help our
customers and the public at large. The onset
of the covid era saw a digital revolution
take place at a lightning speed. Companies
had to fast-forward the adoption of new
technologies to stay relevant. Future
Generali India Life Insurance followed the
protocol and launched “Project BOLT’ for
its existing customers who wanted to take
another insurance policy with the company.
We re-engineered our sales process to make
the policy issuance process completely
contactless and paperless with the policy
being issued within 48 hours. Publicizing
the availability of this technology to our
customers and distributors was key to the
business success. The PR campaign was run
successfully across key regions pan India
achieving the desired outcome. Another
big PR campaign for us was assisting our
insurance agents in going digital. Insurance
is traditionally a face-to-face business, so
the lockdown meant that personal contact
was not possible to sell an insurance
product that was most needed at the time.
We are one of the few insurance players
to develop a 360-degree digital delivery
platform helping our agents all over India
to carry out everyday business activities.
Flovie Martins strongly
believes in the power of PR
communications to drive
business goals
The integrated digital platform took the
entire policy issuance process online. Our
potential customers needed to know that
this was possible while also informing them
about the safety measures in place with
the background underwriting checks. The
PR campaign was a success in attracting
attention for our 360-degree digital
platforms for agents which also aided them
when approaching potential customers.
How were corporate communication
/ PR activities helping your company
during the lockdown?
Shefali Khalsa: The primary mantra
for us has been to communicate, both
internally and externally. We had to ensure
that we reached out to every stakeholder
group across the country and be very
mindful of the message we are sending
out. As one of the most trusted brands of
the country, it was incumbent upon us as a
brand to reach out and reassure.
With employees transitioning to work
from home mode, staying connected with
the team and maintaining meaningful
engagement levels was significant. As an
organization, we were sensitive to such
needs in the current context and undertook
some proactive steps to ensure a seamless
transition to the new situational demands.
We also enhanced the engagement quotient
of our L&D interventions keeping in mind
the work-from-home situation and the
monotony that it may slowly breed.
Each function head wrote to his or her
customers to make them cognizant of their
availability. We spoke to the media as well
to ensure our customers are aware that we
are there for them. Most of our locations are
spread across geographies, covering most of
the mofussil towns as well. Here, we had to
herald this new style of working and staying
relevant in terms of individual productivity,
in alignment with the organization’s
overarching objectives.
Flovie Martins: For any
organization to achieve PR success,
it is not enough to just craft an
extravagant PR plan that looks
attractive on paper. Organizations
must ‘walk the talk’. Ours has
always been an organization that
strongly believes in the power of PR
communications to drive business
goals. While following this belief, we
make relevant investments to partner
and bring in the right people and
technology that aid in achieving the
desired results.
During the lockdown, we used our
external and internal communication
mediums to full capacity to talk to
our stakeholders. On the external
communications front, it was vital to
talk to our customers and stakeholders
to help bring relief in the difficult times
while also keeping them informed on
what the company is doing to help them
in the ongoing pandemic situation. For
this, we used all available PR tools to
spread the word. On our official social
media platforms, we conceptualized
content on social topics and about the
pandemic that would help our followers
cope with the situation. To communicate
with our employees, we used ‘MS Teams’
which proved to be an effective tool due
to its handy integrated features that
tremendously helped business continuity
in times of ‘work from home’.
Share some of the recent activities on
evolving technology and digitalization
Banking Frontiers March 2021 13
 Communication Strategies

in the corporate communication / PR
activities?
Shefali Khalsa: With our digital
readiness, we had the infrastructure in
place for communicating seamlessly with
our stakeholders. We optimally used our
intranet, Catalyst Plus, for cascading
various internal communications to our
employees. Yammer, a social enterprise
network, was launched, which helped
us in keeping engaged, in touch, and in
sharing thoughts with respective teams
and the organization.
Flovie Martins: We launched ‘MS
Teams’ to our employees early last year
experience internal communications in
a fun and engaging way while still being
informed on organizational topics.
What changes do you expect in the PR
agencies’ role in the coming times?
Shefali Khalsa: PR continues to play
a larger role and going forward it will
function more like a business partnership.
It will now move beyond press relations.
PR strategy will derive a lot of information
that will be of relevance to analysts,
investors, industry bodies, media and
customers across traditional and new
age media. The second most important
tools like the podcast, webinars
and panel discussions, virtual PR
conferences, etc, coupled with online
news sites have taken precedence over
ground activities and traditional PR
print medium tools.
u Content will continue to rule
communication platforms. So, they need
to onboard people with the right skillset
and calibre, who not only have capabilities
to ideate and create content but also are
strategic thinkers and know how to get
the right visibility and engagement for
their client’s ready content.
u Empathy when dealing with a

which came in very handy when the
pandemic hit and a nationwide lockdown
was announced, resulting in work from
home. The inbuilt features on this
platform like real-time messaging and
calls, forming focussed groups, townhall
capabilities, etc helped business continuity
tremendously and effortlessly and
seamlessly. More recently, we launched
the Yammer platform for our employees,
which is again a social engagement tool
from Microsoft. Employees can now
role would be creating newsworthy and
engaging stories for a brand’s audience
to get noticed on research. All of this will
eventually impact the business.
Flovie Martins: When faced with a
situation, I strongly believe in evolving
and adapting to it to find a new way to
not only exist but thrive.
u To stay relevant in covid times, PR
agencies need to upskill, keeping
themselves abreast of the new-age
digital media requirement. PR online
journalist will also be key in redefining
relationships. There is even more
pressure than before at a journalist’s
end. Due to media layoffs, a journalist
would be now handling multiple
beats. Here, empathy from corporate
communication executives and PR
agency executives, while being sensitive
when dealing with a journalist, will go
a long way in paving a more fruitful
and productive relationship for both.
ravi@glocalinfomart.com

N E W S

Year-long celebration @Aegon Life

A egon Life Insurance Co celebrated International Women’s

Day 2021 in line with the theme ‘#ChoosetoChallenge’, where
women choose to challenge paradigms and biases. It will be a
month-long celebration for the company where ‘Womenhood’ will
be recognized and acknowledged. The company is planning a series
of online activities that would appeal to the mental, emotional,
physical and intellectual well-being of all the women at the company.
The activities kicked-off on 4
March with an informative webinar,
‘YourDost Webinar on Womanhood:
The walks of her life’. It encouraged
women to identify unique stress-
points and empowered them to build
a personal response to encounter
these situations. This was followed
with a fun-filled women’s only
activity called ‘Bollyfit’, which was
a perfect mix of Bollywood dance steps and fitness combined.
The next event was a CPO Interact Session with Sunita Rath,
Chief People’s Officer of the company, the highlight of which
was a sneak peek into Sunita’s inspirational journey as a leader.
The session offered an exclusive platform for all the women
employees to connect and share their stories with Sunita.
The other event was the panel discussion ‘#POWERHER’
a live online moderated event
that featured eminent panellists
who discussed the era of women
empowerment and key role that
women play in a professional setup.
The sessions were an initiative of the
company Aegon Life’s endeavour
to create an all-inclusive world
powered with equal opportunities for
everyone, especially women.

14 Banking Frontiers March 2021

 Governance
Exchanges adopt new technologies,
face new challenges
S
eema Nayak, Chief Compliance
Officer (CCO) at NCDEX, is
responsible for compliance,
member compliance, membership,
inspection, investor protection and
enforcement. She has been associated
with NCDEX for 4 years. She is an MBA
with over two decades of experience in
the securities markets.
Ramadevi Srinivasan heads the Risk
Management Department at NCDEX
and leads the teams for enterprise risk
and governance, internal audit and
information security. She has been
associated with NCDEX for over 10 years.
She is a chartered accountant with over 3
decades of post qualification experience
in the financial services sector.
Seema Nayak and Ramadevi Srinivasan
speak about risks in the stock market
space and the art of managing these risks
in a scenario where stock exchanges have
seen transition from historical markets
operating on ‘open outcry’ models, low
transparency and unregulated as well as
fragmented set of intermediaries to online
electronic platforms offering near total
transparency. Says Ramadevi Srinivasan:
“There has been a sea change in the way
markets are viewed by the stakeholders
– from a hazy perception that markets
are risky and speculative and hindering
economic development to a growing
realization that regulated markets can and
do provide a platform for price discovery
and sophisticated tools for management
of risks posed by price volatility. They are
a necessary adjunct to global economic
development.”
Seema Nayak believes that computer-
based trading, including algorithmic
trading (AT) and high frequency trading
(HFT), have become predominant
features of modern financial markets.
Fintech solutions that make use of big
data analytics, artificial intelligence
and blockchain technologies are being
introduced at an unprecedented rate in
the operations of exchanges, she adds.
GRC CHALLENGES
The importance of GRC, or Governance,
Risk and Compliance, in the
technology-based operations cannot
be overemphasized. To use a popular
cliché, technology is a good servant but a
bad (dangerous) master and needs to be
tempered by the ever-watchful eyes of the
GRC in a highly regulated environment.
The role of GRC is therefore critical,
as compliance ensures adherence to
regulations, while risk and governance
manage internal controls, identify and
manage present and emerging risks,
thereby improving the overall resilience
of the organization. Particularly for
exchanges, the GRC challenges are
aggravated by their dual role as regulated
entities and market regulators in their
own right.
Seema Nayak emphasizes that
compliance managers have to navigate
through the diverse regulatory
requirements applicable to exchanges,
covering everything from best execution,
prevention of market abuse, data privacy,
cyber-security, anti-money laundering,
business continuity et all, besides the
routine corporate compliances, and are at
the same time responsible for ensuring a
similarly huge gamut of compliances by
their member brokers.
Ramadevi Srinivasan argues that risk
managers in the exchange space have
to deal not just with the conventional
risks (strategic, operational & financial),
but also address more unconventional
risks posed by IT failures, cyber threats,
regulatory risks, etc. In fact, the recent
pandemic situation has posed an
unprecedented challenge to the risk
managers in the form of WFH risks.
HOME-GROWN TECH TOOLS
NCDEX has deployed various
technological solutions, including data
analytics tools, to meet compliance
and risk requirements, which are very
effective in pre-empting compliance / risk
Ramadevi Srinivasan Seema Nayak
issues and hotspots. “Many of our tech
tools are home-grown and developed to
provide custom built solutions. However,
in compliance and risk space, more than
any other, the technology is only as good
as the person – and we at NCDEX respect
that people matter,” avers Seema Nayak.
GENDER DIVERSITY
NCDEX practices gender diversity. Its
compliance, risk management and HR
teams are led by women executives.
Women representation at the Senior
Management Group levels is 30%
and overall women representation
level is also 30%. Apart from Seema
Nayak and Ramadevi Srinivasan, other
female employees at VP and above level
include Aditi Mukherjee, Executive Vice
President and Head, Human Resources,
Poornima Shetty, Senior Vice President,
Finance & Accounts, Smita Chaudhary,
Vice President, Compliance & Investor
Services Cell, Kavita Jha, Vice President,
Retail & Institutional Sales and Monica
Suvarna, Vice President, Corporate
Technology & PMO. Seema Nayak
says: “We are proud to note that most
of our departments and even our group
companies have women executives in
leading roles. To conclude, a tongue
in cheek observation, notwithstanding
gender diversity, given that women
tend to be better listeners, are more
approachable, are naturally tuned
to enforcing discipline, and better at
consensus building, women executives
may actually outperform in specific areas
like compliance, HR, etc.”
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 15
 HR – Post-Covid

When HR Rose to the Challenge

We bring in this 7-part feature views of senior HR professionals on how
HR has become a pivot in organizations, how digital in transforming
HR, the new methodologies in onboarding given organizations are
mostly into WFH, the evolving employee engagement programs, newer
concepts in awarding perks and benefits, the continuance or otherwise
of WFH and the newer concepts in employee appraisals and evaluations.

Amrit Jaidka Arora Kiran Yadav Manisha Prasad Meenaa Sharma Nagina Singh
Head Human Resource - Chief People Officer, Vice President - Head CHRO, Executive Director,
Digit Insurance Canara HSBC OBC Life Human Resources, Reliance Securities HR,
Insurance CRIF India DBS Bank India

Part 1
HR moves center stage; proves its mettle
C
ovid has forced organizations to
rapidly change their approach to
work and HR has played a significant
role in articulating this approach. HR has
responded with agility to the situation to
enable employees to work more effectively
from remote locations during the lockdown
by streamlining IT and providing admin
and operations support. Offices were made
safe places to work by following central
guidelines and with necessary infrastructure
changes from IT and admin points of view.
BFSI organizations have been giving
behavioral guidelines and safety protocols
for covid prevention to the employees from
time to time along with remote working
ready reckoner. Additionally, to safeguard
health and wellbeing of those on field duties,
special group insurance policies have been
introduced by several BFSI organizations.
DBS Bank is present across all major
markets in Asia, where infections were
rampant even before it had assumed global
proportions. Because of the presence of
several regional touchpoints necessitating
frequent business travels by the staff, the
bank started taking necessary precautionary
measures starting December 2019 itself.
Being a future-ready organization, it had
prepared itself to face the pandemic.
IMMEDIATE RESPONSE
The immediate response to the covid crisis
was prioritizing employee wellbeing while
maintaining business continuity. The
bank created a quick response team with
representation from all business units as
a point of contact for all issues/questions
about the situation. The bank also formed a
Crisis Management Committee (CMC) with
senior members across various functions
headed by its CEO to devise policies and
initiatives to enable continued operations.
Nagina Singh, the bank’s Executive
Director, HR, highlights 3 priority initiatives
that the bank took up: “First, as a daily
activity, updated safety guidelines were
communicated to all employees with an
update on the situation, reinforcing safe
behavior and practices. Second, to enable
critical functions for the roles qualifying
under essential banking services, proper
food and transport facilities were arranged
along with a daily special allowance as a
token of appreciation for their work in the
testing times. Lastly, rigorous sanitization
and hygiene measures were maintained at
the premises.”
To ensure continuity, CRIF Highmark
Information Solutions activated its BCP
instantly, and meetings with all the senior
staff leaders were periodically held once the
company adopted WFH. Also, it announced
an immediate action plan to enable the
support system and infrastructure for WFH.
The management arranged for continuous
communication to the leaders/managers/
teams on the plans and sent laptops and
desktops to employees’ residences - all within
a week. It also extended internet and phone
allowances to employees to support WFH.
Manisha Prasad shares details: “Our
HR team and leaders ensured they are
available 24x7 for employees to overcome
their anxieties and address queries. Apart

16 Banking Frontiers March 2021

from ensuring smooth business operations,
we also focused on holistic wellness of
employees covering professional, emotional
and physical well-being. We introduced an
employee assistance program that offered
counselling facility and wellness guidance.
We also launched the Beaconforce app
globally to connect employees through
contests, games, events and activities.”
With the pandemic resetting established
working schedule, HR leaders were compelled
to have a rethink on workforce and employee
planning, management, performance and
experience strategies. The transition to remote
working has spurred demand for automation,
increased adoption of collaboration tools
and a significant shift to cloud computing
to create seamless collaboration of remote
workforces. Amidst this transitory phase,
keeping employees motivated and enthused
to move towards the new normal has become
the utmost priority for organizations. The HR
department is tasked with ensuring adequate
enablement and engagement of teams while
also preparing for hard decisions.
LEVERAGING TECHNOLOGY
According to Meenaa Sharma,
organizations have transformed and
realigned, keeping technology at the center
of each strategy. She explains: “At every step,
we at Reliance Securities have automated
systems and processes to enhance the
onboarding experience and employee
engagement. We introduced wellness
programs for employees and their families.
The pandemic necessitated that the entire
employee journey was re-imagined by the
HR function from the perspective of the
new challenges in a distributed virtual
workplace environment. This change
entailed modification of the recruitment
Part 2
Digital Transformation within HR
O
ver the past few years, organizations
have seen a paradigm shift in
the way HR operates. There has
been a complete shift from traditional HR
to digital HR. Covid has also compelled
organizations to digitize HR processes.
For most organizations, typical employee
practices, rewards and recognition policies,
engagement initiatives, exit processes, and
everything in between.”
At Digit Insurance, a large part of its
employees are millennials and beyond
providing and covering physical wellness,
the company also tried to understand
what drives them - whether it is generous
boundaries and freedom to work,
celebrating their success, or helping them
prioritize their work-life balance.
Says Amrit Jaidka Arora: “We have
been continuously working on new ways
to engage them, providing opportunities
of at-home training, cross-functional
training and virtual monthly quarantine
games to keep their morale up. Leaders
and managers across the organization
have been developing and working on an
emotional connection with their teams.
Acknowledging personal and professional
challenges of employees, being transparent,
and answering the ‘why’, our managers have
enhanced their efforts to keep our remote
workforce productive and motivated.”
Digit Insurance utilized systems like
the ATS to smoothen its onboarding and
recruitment process. The insurer tried
keeping people rooted in the office through
its newsletter and bringing in more positive
thoughts. Apart from the regular issues, the
company brought out a lockdown edition
of Digit Pulse, the company’s monthly
newsletter, in which an office location was
featured every month highlighting how
each team was coping. When the situation
was gloomy, the HR started the good news
edition to bring in more positive thoughts
for employees.
DBS Bank focused on employee
wellbeing, business continuity and
enhancing capabilities to sustain smooth
lifecycle processes such as recruitment
and selection, on-boarding, confirmation,
payroll, performance management,
exit management, etc, have now been
completely digitized through HR portals.
The HR digital revolution is here and
moving rapidly. Organizations are looking
operations after weathering the initial
storm. The next step was engaging the
virtual workforce to ensure no or minimal
drop in productivity.
EMPLOYEE WELL-BEING
The bank introduced monetary benefits
to the staff to meet expenses for the basics
and went on to provide a holistic covid
lump sum insurance policy and allowances
for flu jabs, WFH gadgets, home workout
equipment, medical tracking devices, etc,
to support the change in lifestyle during
the pandemic and accommodate increased
spend related to covid. Mental wellbeing
has remained a key area of focus.
The bank has been proactive in
announcing that there would be no
retrenchments and pay cuts so that
employees could feel secure - socially and
financially. Additionally, the bank provided
a special daily allowance for essential
roles working out of the office. Increased
communication on the 24 Response App
(emergency service aid at the click of a
button) was leveraged for delivering critical
items to employees’ households. Softer
mandates ensured employees experience
work-life balance in the new normal -
Observing 5@5 across the bank, which
implies Friday work hours ending at 5 pm.
PASSING THE TEST
As it is the human assets that were threatened
by the virus, it was a test of responsiveness,
resilience and pragmatism for human
resources professionals. The fact that most
BFSI organizations could maintain business
continuity with ensure minimal impact on
employee health and well-being, is quite a
testament to the attitude and aptitude of the
HR professionals.
for new, effective and productive ways
to meet the evolving demands of doing
business, which entail agility, 24x7 global
access, speed and accuracy. With a leaner
workforce structure and a focus on building
an open culture, almost all the routine
HR processes have been digitized and
Banking Frontiers March 2021 17
 HR – Post-Covid
automated now.
“Our processes are completely paperless
and we are now creating analytical and bot-
based platforms for real-time transition
and data-based approach for decision
making. From hire-to-retire, we have
transformed digitally and now we are now
in the process of implementing the next
phase of automation,” says Meenaa.
‘Being Digital to the Core’ is an integral
part of the DBS strategy, and the bank
has successfully implemented various
transformational programs. It has leveraged
technology extensively in its hiring process
to create a richer experience for the
applicants. To this end, Jobs Intelligence
Maestro (JIM) helps streamline the end-
to-end job application process and enables
real-time interaction 24x7. Recruiters
now take 8 minutes to assess a candidate’s
resume compared to an average of 30
minutes taken earlier. By automating the
pre-screening process, the HR team can
now save about 40 hours a month.
The bank established flexible work
arrangements to operate with an absolute
bare minimum staff in each branch/hub.
Further, it enabled its infrastructure set-up
for collaboration tools like MS Teams and
Cisco Webex, remote connectivity through
VPN and access from home for critical
applications for all employees to establish
a robust WFH setup. Even traditional office
Part 3
The New Normal for Onboarding
H
iring and orientation of new
employees, ie, the onboarding
process, is extremely critical for
employee and business success. However,
like many other things, it has become even
more critical during pandemic times. It is
also now more difficult than ever.
Reliance Securities created a seamless
process, which took care of the social
distancing norms and needed minimal
time in office for welcoming, training and
engaging with the new recruits. The company
realigned all its virtual processes, which are
now executed through a centralized digital
channel to ensure end-to-end execution –
right from the phase of online selection to
18 Banking Frontiers March 2021
dependent functions like treasury and
markets and call center operations have
been successfully migrated to this set-up.
Nagina shares details about chatbots:
“We introduced OneBot, an AI-based
virtual assistant, to solve employee queries
and provide access to HR services in
one click, thereby taking the employee
experience up several notches. Over 2000
queries have been resolved from November
2020 to January 2021 using OneBot.”
She adds: “We have recently launched
‘My Skills’, a platform that can be utilized
to further empower our employees to take
charge of their development. It works in
tandem with DBS Match. My Skills equips
employees to update their skills, and
DBS Match throws relevant internal job
opportunities basis the skill sets.”
Digit Insurance’s induction program
has been revamped and has become
virtual. Training has moved online and
employee engagement by way of virtual
games has moved online. The company is
using AI assistants to keep a close ear on
its employees.
The HR team at Digit Insurance used
all possible digital capabilities to the
fullest to keep all communication going,
including Lifesize, Microsoft Teams and
Zoom. Many manual processes have been
automated and moved online – with virtual
induction sessions, virtual training and
recruitment and finally efficient onboarding
of the recruits. The company ensured that the
team had all the right tools like the required
hardware, software, communication tools,
file-sharing applications, etc. An automated
welcome kit is part of the processes, ensuring
all the handholding required for new joiners
in the initial days.
Meenaa explains the induction
program: “We introduced an online
induction program and video connect call
to understand from the new recruits their
engagement levels in the initial few days
after joining. We conduct monthly manager
meetings and 30, 60, and 90-day surveys to
understand their journey month-on-month
video conferences instead of face-to-face
meetings. Online training and e-learning
modules have been created for this.
Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance
Co has self-service portals available for
its employees and managers, which helps
them navigate through mundane tasks
such as attendance and leave management,
HR letters, salary slips, help desks, etc.
Learning and development activities are
now digitized where modules are available
in a self-learning mode and employees can
take these courses at their own time and
convenience.
Kiran explains: “Most of these services are
also available on-the-go through mobile apps
to the employees. As the world is becoming
more and more data-driven by each passing
day, HR is also not untouched by it.”
At CRIF Highmark digitization of HR
functions has been an initiative taken a year
ago before the start of lockdown. Processes
like digital onboarding to automation
of key HR programs like performance
management and compensation have
helped the company.
Overall, the HR teams are seen
using technology and data to overcome
inefficiencies of distance and time. A large
number of customer-facing innovations
are now also employee-facing and for
that reason HR teams have to undergo
fewer trials.
and take relevant actions to align them
to the organizational culture. The entire
framework has been designed as a blend of
technology with a human touch.”
Amrit reveals that the entire induction
process at Digit Insurance has been revamped
and now consists of virtual content. “We
added our culture training module and
gamified some heavy insurance modules to
make them more interesting,” she says.
She adds that in the covid scenario,
the hiring and onboarding have moved
completely to a virtual platform. The
HR team made sure that infrastructure,
systems and configuration were in place
when a candidate joined from home. The
team onboarded 380+ new employees in a
completely virtual format.
DBS Bank developed an onboarding
microsite, which serves as a one-stop
solution for new joiners, line managers and
buddies to ensure effective assimilation into
the system. It provides a smooth step-by-
step guide for an employee on their first day
at work. The bank has also moved its week-
long orientation program to virtual mode.
Business induction is conducted through
sessions by BU/SU leads and subject
matter experts. A detailed HR induction
follows covering key people practices. The
effectiveness of the onboarding initiative is
analyzed after the completion of 180 days
with the help of a mood ring survey on the
new joiner’s holistic readiness. The bank’s
new joiner survey feedback scores have been
over the roof, with a satisfaction score of 97%
at various checkpoints.
Nagina says: “Our onboarding journey
has been continually enhanced to ensure new
hires are operational from the date of joining
Part 4
Off-beat Programs with a Purpose
M
any organizations started a variety
of off-beat employee engagement
programs with diverse objectives.
Says Nagina: “With offerings like MindFi
(a mindfulness app subscription) and
Employee Assistance Program, DBS Bank
is looking to provide solutions to address
employees’ mental wellbeing. Additionally,
the bank organized a slew of informative
webinars with experts for managers to equip
them to detect and handle employee distress
in a virtual setting. Our efforts have also
focused on de-stigmatizing mental wellness
through ‘coffee with counsellor’ sessions,
giving our staff an avenue to connect with
professional counsellors.”
The bank also launched the ‘Together
Campaign’ to provide a psychological safety
net to employees and reaffirm that DBS stands
together in times of turmoil. Nagina says with
this campaign, the bank built a ‘learn, share
and teach’ community from within the bank
to share stories ranging from fun activities to
cooking recipes and more.
with all logistical requirements fulfilled to
deliver the best-in-class virtual onboarding
experience. To enable employee productivity
and acclimatization at DBS, we also initiated
a buddy system for new candidates. Joining in
a completely virtual set-up can be unnerving
for some, hence we stressed on video-based
virtual interactions right from DBS’ Group
CEO to the line managers.”
Canara HSBC OBC Life Insurance
made significant changes in its onboarding
process to make it more digital and robust,
especially to meet the pandemic challenges.
The insurer introduced e-onboarding
and e-joining forms for new employees
during the lockdown with other processes
also digitized so that pandemic effects are
minimal and the company is able to provide
best-in-class joining experience.
Kiran says: “We used to conduct a meet-
and-greet session where the new joiners
could meet the leadership and have a direct
session with the business heads of various
functions and also have an interaction with
The bank also rolled out Covid Warriors
campaign to recognize employees who had
stepped beyond the line of duty to support
customers, colleagues and the community at
large. Virtual connections with the leadership
teams increased manifold to establish a
direct channel with the leadership. Another
initiative was ‘Future Forward Week’ - a
virtual learning festival for employees where
internal and external panel discussions are
arranged. Idea Vaults and Ideathons were
conducted with seed funding for ideas that
will shape the new normal.
Digit Insurance engaged all the teams
together in monthly quarantine games.
Whether it was Guess the Movie Challenge
or the Disney Villain Puzzle, or 90’s
Cartoon Quiz, the company has received
overwhelming response from each team in
every city across India.
Amrit added that they did not let
covid dampen the spirits and those teams
which could not physically meet got
together and celebrated festivals virtually.
the HR SPOCs. A quick e-version of the same
was launched where employees interacted in
an online session and given a walkthrough of
all the policies.”
According to Manisha, there has been
immense learning on the go and unlocking
possibilities for the future as well. “We at
CRIF Highmark did a quick transition to
create processes and platforms for digital and
remote onboarding. The platform facilitated
virtual video interviews, online document
submissions, managing compliances,
conducting online induction sessions and
managing logistics to provide the required
infrastructure to their residences.”
Most of the steps that these organizations
have undertaken can be summarized in 2
categories: (i) converting existing physical
processes to digital (ii) adding new processes
to enhance integration to the organization.
Whereas there is no explicit mention, all
these organizations probably made the
onboarding process more efficient in terms
of time and costs.
“Our #HarDinDiwali virtual engagement
challenge left a smile on every team member’s
face. Participation were overwhelming and
we could engage with employees across all
our 50 locations,” says Amrit.
She further added that the organization
has been memorializing the memories of
Indian reformers for years and continue
to look up to the work of influencers
who are representing the country on a
global platform through the sheer hard
work in their respective industries. “And
this Independence Day, we thought of
celebrating their awesomeness with a
little twist and loads of fun! The lockdown
allowed us to cross-train team members
on pre-inspection, non-motor and health
operations. Sessions were done to bridge
the knowledge gap and it was hearting
to see so many team members willing to
broaden their skills and willing to learn,”
she said.
During these trying times, it became
imperative for organizations to stay
Banking Frontiers March 2021 19
 HR – Post-Covid
connected with their employees and keep a
close track of their mental and physical well-
being. Reliance Securities introduced several
activities which included employees and
their family members, such as the ‘Family
Moments’ activity where employees, were
encouraged to share small moments with
their families while cooking, playing, etc.
Says Meenaa: “We also ran a
photography contest on the theme of
‘view from the window’. Apart from that,
we have been releasing ‘action calendars’
with a motivational theme every month,
which helps employees stay positive and
plan a work routine. An online 24x7
doctor’s care helpline was always made
available for all our employees and their
family members. As an additional layer of
employee engagement, we ensured wishing
the family members of our employees also
on their birthdays.”
Part 5
Employee Perks – The New Landscape
T
he new normal has posed challenges
but it has shown us some upsides
too. Employees have more flexibility
to align their work schedules. Location
and relocation will not be another concern
for out-of-station employees currently.
Employees will have the option of opting
for a better work-life balance.
Covid has made organizations re-assess
their benefits portfolio across the globe.
Companies will now focus more on
employee health and safety and there will
be a shift from wellness to the wellbeing of
the employees. Lockdown has also caused a
shift in the way organizations and employees
look at mental health and this will also be
among one of the priorities in the overall
benefits package. The perceived value of
EAP’s (employee assistance programs) is
also expected to increase.
Kiran says companies are expected to
move towards a hybrid workplace model
where employees will have more flexibility
on remote work options. “It will certainly
have an impact on the leave policies of the
organizations. With more acceptance of the
digital mode of absorption, the perceived
value of benefits such as telemedicine
20 Banking Frontiers March 2021
During the lockdown, when most of the
Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce
Life Insurance workforce was working
from home, it provided a huge opportunity
for the company to interact with a wider
base including the family members of the
employees. The company went completely
digital in this engagement initiative. Some
of the activities included team games on
Zoom like treasure hunt, Tambola, Trivia
Quiz to Dumb Charades, and other fun
activities.
Kiran says: “Besides fun activities, we
also conducted informative and engaging
sessions such as Zumba, meditation, yoga,
painting, drawing and storytelling sessions
for children. All the good times that we had
seen before the lockdown were a motivation
for all of us, a reminder to look forward,
activities such as sharing last year off-site
pictures or sharing pictures with your best
and other re-engagement activities will
certainly increase,” she adds.
According to Nagina, psychological
safety ranks on top in the new normal.
Employee perks and benefits that lend social
and psychological safety net to employees
are more crucial than ever. Benefits like the
Employee Assistance Program, emergency
aid services like 24 Response App and
health-related benefits for employees and
family - like vaccination, health check-ups,
etc, will see an increasing trend in usage,
she says adding: “Employee perks with
dependencies on a physical presence like
onsite creches, onsite gyms, etc, will see a
downward trend.”
Says Manisha: “Looking at it holistically,
we think that organizations must invest
more in the overall wellness dimensions
of their employees and hence boost
allowances and benefits related to mental
and physical health. Having a futuristic
view is critical and investing in capability
building and hence extending allowance
and perks around skill-building should be
the approach.”
With a large proportion of employees
still working from home and the demands
buddies. These were effective enough to
not just create engagement but stirred a
sense of looking forward to being able to do
that all over again, and instilled hope and
positivity amongst the employees.”
Staying connected and engaged
while working remotely was the ultimate
challenge at hand. CRIF Highmark
conducted various online events like Fun
Fridays with hobby and talent display, ‘guess
your colleague’ contest through childhood
photographs and ‘know your CRIF’ kind
of activities. Continuous engagement
along with a focus on learning was the key.
Workshops and training sessions were also
held on how to take online meetings, how to
communicate and how to present oneself in
online meetings. The motivational speaker
session series had actor Ashish Vidyarthi
interacting with all CRIFians talking about
‘making today matter’.
changing in the light of the pandemic, work
perks may change to suit the new needs.
This change in the definition of perks
will also play a huge role in keeping the
existing workforce engaged and attracting
new talents. It is therefore imperative for
businesses to prioritize which perks they
would continue to offer to employees
without impacting their current CTC.
Meenaa explains that the pandemic
has compelled businesses to enforce
flexible work hours and extended leave
for the entire workforce, which were
earlier counted as perks and allowed only
as special privileges. Besides the existing
benefits, organizations must also look at
providing extended vacation balanced
with the employee working hours, setting
up well-being and performance platforms
for managing stress and allowing more
casual attire to work. Frequent and
ongoing engagement with bots can help
organizations gauge real-time engagement
levels and the needs of their employees
rather than conducting annual or bi-annual
surveys. Companies must also rethink the
perks they are currently offering to prepare
for a future beyond covid-19.
Part 6
WFH – Permanent or Temporary
T
he impact caused by covid has been
unprecedented and has caught
everyone off-guard across the
globe. Given the challenges faced in terms
of organizational readiness during the
lockdown, it has now brought remote work
to the forefront of HR policy conversations.
Kiran explains that it is important to
appreciate that for many organizations, it is
still not viable for a long-term shift to work
from remote locations and that not all roles
are designed to succeed in a virtual working
scenario. Hence, organizations will have to
carefully address shifting towards WFH
and assess the success factors through
pilot programs, she says, maintaining that
“However, given the experience during the
crisis, it is expected that organizations will
shift more towards hybrid models with a
combination of physical workplace and
remote work.”
Approximately 40% of Reliance
Securities employees are likely to
continue working remotely at least for
Part 7
Employee Appraisal – Time for Thinking Hats
S
ome studies suggest that for a
performance management system
to be effective, it should consider the
social environment where the work is being
done. It should be perceived as fair both in
terms of design and application. Existing
evaluation systems are not designed keeping
in mind the virtual work environment and
hence it will make organizations rethink the
way behaviour and performance are rewarded.
Kiran says: “It would be too soon to say
what changes will be made in the appraisal
systems for WFH employees, but it will need
organizations to put their thinking hats on
and reconsider the appropriateness of their
performance management systems. It will
have an impact on the fundamentals and the
traits like the quality of the contribution made
by the employee will become more relevant
rather than say, the number of hours worked.”
DBS Bank believes that clarity of objectives
and regular feedback on progress are crucial
some time after the pandemic. Even as
the organization shifts to more remote
work operations and explores critical
competencies, the focus will be to ensure
seamless employee collaboration digitally
and also remain prepared to adjust
employee experience strategies. Meenaa
explains: “As a focus towards realignment
of our business strategy, our set-up will
continue to be remote and more flexible in
the coming times.”
DBS Bank went ahead and conducted
various experiments in the organization as
part of Future of Work and Workplace and
Workforce (F3W) and observed that WFH
had many perks of flexibility, time saved
in travel and democratization of employee
participation during meetings. On the other
hand, it also noted some negatives, such
as prolonged WFH adversely impacting
team bonding, collaboration and ideation
process, and the feeling of missing out
among employees.
“Taking the above observations into
to creating a high-performance organization,
even more in a part virtual world. According
to the bank, the process starts with setting
SMART goals and conducting goal audits to
evaluate the quality of goal setting.
Nagina says the bank lays equal
emphasis on both the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of
performance. The ‘what’ is assessed through
the goals set, and ‘how’ is assessed through
our PRIDE! Values. At DBS, performance
management is not a once-a-year event but
a regular and ongoing conversation between
the employee and the manager, she says,
adding: “The conversation focuses on the
progress of the what and the how followed
by development-oriented conversations to
help employees advance in their careers.
We foster a culture of anytime feedback
to encourage employees to seek as well as
give constructive feedback to anyone in the
organization. At the same time, managers
can request feedback from their team.”
account, we have arrived at the 60/40 work
from home policy, wherein all qualifying
roles can work from home for up to 40%
of the time. Employees can also choose
to work from our satellite offices,” says
Nagina.
CRIF Highmark has been working
on policies encouraging good work-life
balance and examining whether permanent
working from home could only be allowed
as per the need and nature of the job,
especially when the world inching back to
normal. Says Manisha: “CRIF Highmark
has been futuristic and there was already
a deliberation on smart working ways
like a combination of working from office
and home as a possibility in future for all
of us at CRIF India. We haven’t seen this
coming from our people so far; colleagues
are looking forward to coming to the office
and see each other.”
From the looks of it, flexible WFH
seems to be destined to be a permanent
fixture in the future.
Performance parameters at CRIF
Highmark are more pragmatic and relevant
with respect to the functions and roles
and tied to business and individual goals.
Manisha believes that it is crucial to evolve
the lenses and definitions of performance
to make it relevant and evaluation should
always be more objective.
Meenaa says it is high time organizations
focused on high performance and altered
their performance metrics. Recalibrating key
performance indicators (KPIs) is essential
to ensure remote work is effective, she says.
“Enterprises that want the best from their
workers and customers should innovate and
redesign the critical success factors for each
role with measurable parameters but also
create distinctions between work and home life.
Redefining and remeasuring high performance
will be the true disruptive opportunity for post-
pandemic growth,” she says.
ravi@glocalinfomart.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 21
 Developing Skillsets
IQ + EQ + DQ for complete
digital transformation
Find out the role for each and their interplay at IndiaFirst Life Insurance:
A
njana Rao as Chief Strategy
Officer is at the helm of strategic
initiatives at IndiaFirst Life
Insurance Co and is tasked with driving a
center of excellence within the company.
Earlier, she led the change management
vertical in the organization, helping the
company to fulfil its objectives around
digitization of its value chain, including
metamorphosis of its end-to-end sales
process and automation and rollout
of new business and underwriting
processes, among others.
In a career spanning close to 2
decades, she has spent the larger part
of her corporate life serving the Indian
insurance (life and general) sector.
The domains she holds expertise in
span across project management,
change management and business
transformation centered on leveraging IT
and process. Prior to joining IndiaFirst
Life Insurance Co, she has worked at
Ernst and Young, Oracle India, Universal
Sompo, SBI Life Insurance and ICICI
Prudential Life Insurance, where she
led a host of IT transformation projects,
aside of driving CMMI implementation
projects.
Anjana speaks on how she intends to
drive digital transformation at IndiaFirst
Life Insurance.
Mehul Dani: Has EQ & IQ become
more or less important in driving digital
transformation during covid?
Anjana Rao: IQ, EQ and Data
Quotient (DQ) are equally important
skills to be possessed not just by the
leadership but even the team members
driving the digital agenda. While IQ is
important, knowledge of technology
and the ability to derive insights from
data are must-haves for a team member
to possess, but not without empathy for
the end-user, not without the ability to
manage the stakeholders.
22 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Anjana Rao indicates that
as automation of processes
seep in, coexisting with bots is
becoming a reality
EQ or emotional intelligence
competency leads to the ability to
influence the stakeholders, effectively
handle conflict resolution and
helps empathize with the end user,
stakeholders, etc. Each of these elements
is equally critical to delivering a successful
transformation. Every transformation
needs effective handling of change and
without EQ it is not possible to lead and
drive change, even if you have the best of
the technologies to implement.
During the lockdown period where
consumers shifted their buying behavior
to online and found it more convenient,
their expectations from financial
institutions also are changing. They
expect the ease of transacting extended
by retailers to be extended by the
insurance carriers as well. Not to mention
the stress of WFH, social distancing, not
able to meet their near and dear and the
fear of life do add to the stress and has
made them less tolerant for poor service
quality or non-availability of services on
the digital platform. That’s when, teams
were quick to push back on the collection
of physical documents and enabling
processes with digital documents; quick
rollout of the most common servicing
options on WhatsApp and enabling
claims notification and tracking on
WhatsApp are few examples where EQ
became critical.
Your organization has undergone
several digital transformations during
2020. What is the big picture created
by IQ & EQ about these projects?
Having the end-product aligned to
the end-user expectation has been one of
the key highlights of these projects. Being
able to proactively gauge which aspects of
the rollout the end-user is struggling with
and how a course correction can be made,
without any business disruptions is quite
crucial here.
We have seen a larger play of EQ
during the lockdown time when the entire
organization was focused on making the
remote operations possible for customer
servicing and customer onboarding. We
could see empathy with customers and
empathy for field sales at display, to make
tweaks to the process to make it relevant.
EQ has played a critical role in
driving usage and adoption of initiatives.
It has played a critical role in defining
contactless journeys for customer
acquisition, which helped the sales. One
of the recent examples of a balanced
IQ, EQ, and DQ being applied is also
our nudge program, where we had to
use technology to deliver nudges, data
to derive intelligence and awareness
about which inputs will help the BDM in
improvising his productivity.
A dedicated team with cognitive
abilities to experiment with the
emerging technologies, the ability to map
technology to a business situation and the
ability of the team to derive insights from
data and apply it to processes for faster
decisions, strive for enabling personalized
interactions with customers are must
have abilities to deliver a successful
digital transformation.

Has the company organized people with

higher EQ and IQ for projects?
We have carved out a unit for business
transformation and change management,
with the sole purpose to accelerate and
drive the organization towards digital
maturity. This team ensures that:
u The emerging technologies are being

explored and relevant use cases

are thought through by rigorous
brainstorming sessions.
u The impact of the use cases on the

business objectives is plotted.

u This is followed by a series of POCs

with fintechs / insurtechs.

u If the POCs meet the success criteria
defined, then the team along with
the user function plans to make the
solution a part of the mainstream
process/journey.
u Solutions are deliberated with the
IT team to assess the impact on the
existing application portfolio
u Team plans for rollout and adoption
drive in advance and seeks consensus
with stakeholders.
u Post rollout, usage tracking is carried
out by the team and issues faced by the
users are monitored and actioned to
ensure minimum disruption.
u Feedback from business users is also
taken to ensure the enabler is making
a positive impact on their lives.
u The team must balance the above-
mentioned tasks related to innovation
while executing the strategic projects/
initiative which has been planned for
the year.
To manage these initiatives, the team
members must be deft at stakeholder
management, conflict resolutions,
empathizing and objection handling
and they should also have competencies
like the ability to navigate the project
through the myriad challenges while
collaborating in a cross-functional setup,
and multitasking. These are critical
for the successful execution of the
initiatives. Besides this, having a curious
mindset, being energetic, aware, and
being aligned to organizational goals,
seasoned at managing large programs/
project management are a must. While
an adequate level of IQ is a stated ask, EQ
is a must for successful execution.
How is the organization planning to
harness IQ & EQ more deeply to drive
digital transformation in 2021?
For us, the digital transformation
program is all about being an enabler
for identifying new revenue generation
opportunities through innovation and
improving customer experience by
keeping the processes relevant with the
emerging expectations of customers and
deriving insights from data to enhance
the personalization. We understand that
technology leads to enablement, but
technology alone cannot create a long-
lasting impact if not coupled with people
and processes. We understand that
IQ, EQ, Data Quotient all are integral
ingredients for a successful rollout of
the digital transformation journey not
just at the leadership level but also at the
manager level.
We have plans in place to upskill
not just the project vertical, but all staff
members who are involved in process
designing or process monitoring, to
master the art of empathy and to be
able to conceptualize what data insights
will help to make the process more
efficient. We are working on plans to
have these qualities ingrained amongst
the staff members as base skills to
create a profound effect on the customer
experience levels.
As automation of processes seep in,
we witness coexisting with bots becoming
a reality and as a result, processes
operated by staff members are now
being operated by BOTS, and the process
operators now have to get into the role
where they manage the process outcome
and are involved in further continuous PI
to keep processes relevant for their staff
members. Hence, reskilling is critical
for staff members who used to operate
processes.
At IndiaFirst Life, we firmly believe
that a team with high DQ/ EQ/ IQ
will outperform and deliver successful
transformations, which means happy
customers and a higher growth rate for
the organization.
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com

Banking Frontiers March 2021 23

 FI for Women
The gender-agnostic approach needs to change
Dr Jasmine Gupta, National Digital Bank Head at Equitas Small Finance
Bank, and National President - Financial Inclusion Council at Women’s
Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (WICCI), shares insights on
how financial services can be made women friendly:
Ravi Lalwani: Please share some of
your thoughts on innovation in financial
products for women?
Jasmine Gupta: Financial products
and services have been traditionally
designed keeping men in mind. Women
are emerging as an important consumer
segment, which no industry today can
afford to ignore. Women form 48.5%
of the country’s population; however,
women hold only 32% of total bank
accounts. Research suggests that women
are important joint decision-makers for
the purchase of important products such
as gold, home, holiday, car, electronic
goods and financial products. Within
financial products, women prefer ‘safer’
financial products like gold, bank
deposits and life insurance.
Thus, there is immense scope for banks
and financial services institutions to tap into
this promising segment through innovative
products such as savings account bundled
with locker facility, preferential rates of
interests for home loan or gold loan, free
insurance cover, free health check-up
and consultation by gynaecologists and
mental health experts, free family group
accounts, doorstep banking features, etc.
Insurance companies have also explored
women-specific health insurance policies
with in-built pregnancy cover, congenital
disability cover, breast and ovarian cancer
cover, etc.
Other examples are women special
debit cards with additional features like
roadside assistance, expense tracking and
discounts on shopping, dining, travel,
etc. Also women special home loans
with preferential rates and insurance
features as well as women special trading/
investment platforms for analytics-based,
personalized, research, and experience-
rich investment advice for women are
needed. Besides, special current accounts
for women startups and women-specific
goal-based recurring and savings plan
24 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Jasmine Gupta shares that
gold, bank deposits & life
insurance are favorite products
among women customers
to help achieve women’s life, family and
career goals can be ideal. The key to success
here is to innovate and provide solutions
that address women-specific financial
needs and their emotional preferences.
What roles do you see for women with
the financial space going digital?
While women belong to the millennials
and Gen Z categories are digital savvy, the
mobile adoption rate among women in
India is low. Only 45% of women in India
own mobile phones, as compared to 81%
men. Research suggests that women tend to
take more time to adapt to new technology.
Hence, an assisted digital or physical model
works best for women where agents or
advisors, BCs or relationship managers
create an emotional personal rapport
with the customer and guide her through
the digital journey. Initiatives such as
brand ambassadors and loyalty programs
are also important to win women’s trust
and confidence.
Digital savings accounts can
enable women to save as frequently as
possible, in small amounts. Goal-based
digital calculators such as RDometer,
SIPometer, Investometer, etc, can bridge
the knowledge gap and help them
make informed, calculated investment
decisions easily for their various goals.
Since women by nature are risk-averse,
digital insurance products bundled with
digital savings accounts can be a very
useful product proposition for women.
Women these days order groceries/
apparel sitting at home, the same way
they can also manage and transact bank
accounts, pay premiums and EMIs
sitting at home digitally. Many women
are starting their home-based businesses
and selling on e-commerce platforms.
These are the best use-cases for creating
and offering digital credit and payment
product solutions. Overall, the women’s
success story in the financial digital space
is a phygital story.
Do you think we have achieved financial
inclusion for women in the true sense?
Melinda Gates, Co-chair of the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation, says,
‘When the government deposits social
welfare payments or other subsidies
directly into women’s digital bank
accounts, the impact is amazing. Women
gain decision-making power in their
homes and with more financial tools at
their disposal they invest in their families’
prosperity and help drive broad economic
growth.’
The female share of the workforce
in India is 24% and rural women’s
employment is higher in agriculture and
manufacturing industries. Female literacy
is 65% and the gender parity index falls at a
higher education level, suggesting women
getting dropped out of the education
system. As per World Bank Global Findex
data, the gender gap in bank account
ownership has reduced by 14% in the last
5 years; however, half of these accounts
are inactive. Financial inclusion is not just
about owning a bank account; it is about
saving regularly for future goals, borrowing
for personal or business needs, accessing
payments or remittances when required. In
that sense, a lot needs to be done to achieve
financial inclusion for women in its true
letter and spirit.
The experience of micro-finance
lending to women suggests that women
are the best customers. They are more
prudent in paying EMIs in time and
manage small businesses as well as
manage homes under available financial
budgets. Women are also good at
disciplined savings. Hence, when micro-
deposits or recurring deposits linked to
life or kids’ goals are offered to them, they
are more likely to continue with regular
disciplined investment. Apart from
being low defaulters and better savers,
women are more loyal customers and
attach higher emotional value to their
relationship with the financial institution
that supports them for their financial
needs.
Several innovative, digital, and
mobile-based solutions bundling micro-
loans, micro-savings, micro-insurance,
and micro-goal-based deposits through
multiple BC-based projects that can
reach the remotest corners of the country
can help financially include more women
and keep them financially engaged. As
the non-profit organization Women’s
World Banking says, the gender-agnostic
approach needs to change.
ravi@glocalinfomart.com

N E W S

Canara Bank highlights Project Unnati at has been put together with bountiful positive vibes and a hope
IWD celebrations that there would be a better life that they would be able to offer

A s part of its efforts to take the philosophy of directing all

efforts towards making the world a better place for all,
Canara Bank celebrated International Women’s Day with its
their families especially children.

SBI General Insurance creates a unique

Project Unnati, a CSR initiative and involved the beneficiaries
in the celebration. Navjyoti India Foundation also was involved
the initiative. The beneficiaries of the CSR initiative curated
the Women’s Day hampers for the bank’s employees and the
women staff of the bank came up with the idea of celebrating
‘Oneness’ in the organization known for diversity and inclusion.
Men employees too received the hampers for the wonderful
women who stood strong with them. The occasion also marked
a repeated emphasis on ‘#VocalForLocal’ while the stress hs
always been promoting employment and empowerment. Each
sew of the pouches given as part of the Women’s Day giveaways
video clip
S BI General Insurance has always believed in Gender
Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and as part of its Women’s
Day campaign, the company conceptualized and created
a unique video that included real life characters - women
employees across teams and from various levels, asserting
different values that they stand for. Each of these women is a
role model and represents many other women in the company
who affirm similar core values. The company displayed true
inclusive spirit by honouring these strong, inspiring women in
a video, encouraging other women across the country to rise to
the zenith of their careers, in every possible aspect.
The company has of 18% of it total staff strength as women
and 18% women in leadership positions as well. This number
is much higher than the average male-female ratio in most
organisations. The company’s strong emphasis on Diversity and
Inclusion can be seen in its Vividh program, which strives to
bring employees with different professional expertise together
under one umbrella, irrespective of their economic status, age,
ethnicity and religion. Most importantly, the program stresses
on gender equality, encouraging more and more women and
even members from different gender preferences, to be a part of
the company. The Vividh program and the Women’s Day video
essayed the strong message that the company is willing to lead
from the front and to ensure true gender equality, diversity and
inclusion is achieved in the country.

Banking Frontiers March 2021 25

 Web Panel Discussion
Know Your Software
Edited excerpts from a web panel discussion on software assurance, a
topic of critical relevance, held in association with CAST Software:
T
oday, software is taking more
and more decisions and even
human decisions too are conveyed
through and executed through
software. Software knows more
about the organization than
any single individual. Yet, how
much does the organization
know about the software
on which it runs? Knowing
the health of the software is
a precursor to knowing the
health of the organization. In the
light of this emerging dependency,
Banking Frontiers organized a panel
discussion among CIOs of leading
BFSI organizations to have a better
understanding of the core issues.
With disruptive technologies
challenging the traditional banking
model, banks and BFSI organizations
which used to earlier ride on human
knowledge for customer information, are
now completely dependent on machines
and software. This naturally leads to the
question – do these financial entities
know their software well?
Though banks and NBFCs have
taken the step in the right direction, it is of escalating costs and also whether to
imperative for them to understand
the apps and the software.
There is also an urgent
need for them to
understand the
extent of personal
data that can
be stored and
shared in
such apps and
software.
Sunil Jain,
Sr VP, Business SUN
Systems and Technology IL JAIN What is the life cycle? How much
at HDFC Life, said: “We are
more software dependent, not just for
employees, but also for our customers.
There are several tools which are available
for 360 degree-view of them. We have,
26 Banking Frontiers March 2021
in the past, done several exercises, one
of which is migrating the entire content
to the cloud. That forced
us to take a call on
some of the old
software and
retired them.”
KRC
Murty,
Sr Vice
President
and Head
IT Apps –
RTB at Kotak
KRC Mahindra Bank
MURTY supplemented this
view: “The software understands
the organization better than all the teams
managing the software. However, it is not
correct to say that the organization does
not know the setup and mentality or the
expertise and information. Definitely,
every organization needs to have visibility
of the applications it is running. There
are mechanisms in place to see the entire
application in a single dashboard.”
Digital transformation or
modernization also raises the question
develop the app in-house or bring third
party apps into the system.
Sanjeev Kumar, CTO at
Pine Labs elaborated: “For
the homegrown software, if
something goes wrong, you
don’t have anybody else to
fix it. In case of third-party
software, you need to know
what kind of software it is.
How much is manageable
in-house? How much can
be supported in warranties?
control do you have? For this, there has
to be process-like software for tracking
software. So, you are aware that a certain
software is completing its life cycle. There
has to be a matrix for the software itself.”
SOFTWARE INTELLIGENCE
Software monitoring the life cycle or a
third party announcing the sunset of a
running software is chaotic or triggers
the panic button. There are examples
in the banking industry - Base24 is one
such. That leads us to the critical point
of having software intelligence in place.
Nilkant Iyer, Sr VP & Country
Manager-India at CAST Software pointed
out: “Typically the software intelligence
tracks the end life of an application
to help mitigate the risks associated
with it. What you cannot measure, you
cannot improve. So how do you measure
different parameters for open source or
third-party software, where you have no
control on the associated risks? Is there
a way to capture vulnerability in that
case? Is there a way to measure cloud
readiness? Which software to be moved
to the cloud? How can I build a strategy,
which is agnostic of the cloud provider?
We worked on these areas to capture the
intelligence metrics to be able to build
an ROI to see how systems are now and
what it should be in the future.”
The cost of moving and maintaining
the cloud is probably higher than on
premise. Knowing your software is
important and from an organizational
perspective, it has to be ideally
metrics-driven.
LEGACY SYSTEMS VS
MODERNIZATION
Legacy software and legacy platforms
have been a bone of contention in various
large institutes because these software are
used in large size operations with huge
business dependency. Organizations,
at times, are scared to move from one
application to another for the fear of
failure. Besides this, scalability, concerns
about uptime etc also play a significant
role in decision making on modernization.
Mahesh Patel, President at AGS
Transact Tech, explained: “A large
number of banks are still running on
the same solution because that’s the
trusted solution for them. A change
is possible only if there are upgraded
features and projects cost effectiveness.
Technologies or platforms have moved
to open source or much cheaper systems.
Cost is definitely an angle. The question
is whether an alternative is available with “Picking up a product and getting it
same stability, scalability and security
or not.”
Time taken for decision making,
evaluation, and implementation
will have a direct effect on the
modernization process.
KRC Murty opined:
“The time taken is
humongous. The most
critical part is planning
and executing. There are
many products available.
How do you choose the
best for the organization?
Mostly, the non-critical non- MA
banking database applications
are being moved to the cloud. I will
not want to move any applications,
which have critical client related data,
into the cloud as of now because of a)
strategy b) regulatory controls. There
will always be some applications in an
organization, which is a white elephant.
There are times when vendors don’t
keep up to your expectations, and that is
when you know that it is time to move
to a new product.”
Added Sunil Jain: “Major
transformations need to follow a phased
approach. In one of the techniques
which we did, we replaced the core
services into micro services, and
then slowly established it.”
“Source code can capture
resiliency of the application,
agility, technical debt and
cloud readiness. And these
are metrics, which are fairly
easy to capture. When you
marry the facts, the qualitative
NI
information enables you to make
those decisions. The primary thing is
for digital transformation, securing the
budgets as the Board may not sanction
extra budgets,” explained Nilkant Iyer.
While API gateways allowed
organizations to collaborate and helped
them to understand new technologies,
the industry which drove the core
banking systems are now talking about
platform banking as the next step.
HOMEGROWN / OUTSOURCED
customized to your requirements is
the fastest way to implement. In case
if you plan to develop an
app internally, it is
time consuming
and by the time
you deliver
the product,
it is already
obsolete.
This is the
reason behind
organizations
looking for third
party apps,” said
HESH PATEL KRC Murty.
Mahesh Patel was
in complete agreement with
Murty. “Whenever there is a
new requirement, we look at
readymade products, which
offer scope for customization.
In the entire development
lifecycle, the most challenging
aspect is testing - not just
functional testing, but also non-
functional testing, which is more
important. Through non-functional
testing, one can gauge
scalability, security and
stability.”
The
organization
requires a
clearer picture
like an MRI
scan of the
entire layer
of applications
to probably
LKA R f a s t - t r a c k t h e becomes to strategize the future moves
NTH IYE requirements to be in the technology space.
agile and adaptable to
the environment. When migrations
happen, typically the business wants
everything in place at the earliest. At
the same time, the tech team is forced
to meet the expectation of both business
team and the CFO who asks them to
keep costs under control.
Nilkant Iyer put forth a key point:
“When one buys a software, he would
know everything about the financials,
the customers and the competition.
What they don’t know is tech debt. What
are you acquiring in terms of technical
liabilities?”
API INTEGRATION
Integration of a new app always had its
set of hurdles and concerns attached to
it. Especially when it comes to third party
API integration, evaluating application
resilience is key.
KRC Murty added: “We started
the API journey 3 years ago; we have
a dedicated website where all partners
collaborate with us. We
also use some legacy
applications.
There will
always be
challenges.
You need
to work
around
how to do
it. Luckily,
we don’t have
SA too much of
NJE R
EV KUMA legacy systems. But
there are some products
which are not able to keep up with the
pace of the current requirements.”
Sanjeev Kumar said: “On the
payment side, modernizing the apps
includes the services exposing the API,
in the UI side consumer apps, merchant
apps, etc. This is where most of the
changes will lie.”
Getting a total 360-degree macro
perspective still remains a wish for all
the CIOs or all the technology heads.
The clearer the vision is, the easier it
It can help the organization
reduce the cost and the time taken to
implement.
Banking Frontiers March 2021 27
 Women Power
IQ EQ & DQ – the trinity women posses
Lakshmi Iyer, President and CIO – Debt & Head - Products at Kotak
Mahindra Asset Management Company, says women should grab
opportunities with both hands and invoke their IQ, EQ and DQ ‘astras’
and brave the work world:
K
otak Mahindra Asset Management
Company started operations
in December 1998 and has
approximately 7.4 million investors in
various schemes. The company offers
schemes to investors, who have varying risk-
return profiles. It is present in 82 cities and
has 85 branches. Lakshmi Iyer heads fixed
income and products team and has been with
the organization for over 20 years. Starting
as a fund manager, she was responsible for
credit research, deal execution, managing
fund performance across all debt funds
and assisting sales in client interaction. In
addition, she has been a portfolio specialist
and managed product related initiatives
such as product pricing and coordination
with the fund management and sales
team. Prior to joining Kotak Group, she
has worked with Credence Analytics. She
is a MBA in Finance from Narsee Monjee
Institute of Management Studies. She loves
exploring new places, is a big food lover and
an ardent movie buff.
MULTI TASKERS
The year 2020 was one of its kind that
mankind has seen - a pandemic gripped
the world and one’s own abode became
the only place to hide for quite some time.
Self-sufficiency and DIY culture stepped
in and a whole new virtual world assumed
significance. Lakshmi Iyer, defines the
situation with an anecdote: “The picture
below was tweeted by Anand Mahindra a
couple of years ago, saluting every working
woman and acknowledging that their
success has required much more effort
than their male counterparts! This got
further entrenched during the pandemic
phase as work from home (WFH) became
the norm for most of us. Not only did the
working woman plan her work day, she also
had to ensure the household chores like
cooking, baby-sitting, etc, were carried out
with the same intensity. Women do tend to
be multi-taskers. Born as a daughter, they
28 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Lakshmi Iyer believes there
is scope for further increase
of women participation in
financial services
morph into a wife’s role and shift locations,
identity (change of surname) etc, assume
motherhood too, yet continue to focus on
their profession as well.”
GOOD COMBINATION
The pandemic has accentuated the pace
of some developments, which would
otherwise have been a few years away. Be
it financial services or manufacturing, the
need for digitization has certainly been
pronounced. Lakshmi observes that there
is a good combination of IQ (intellectual
quotient) and EQ (emotional quotient)
that women tend to possess, which helps
them toggle between roles effectively. “The
pandemic has seen the need for upping ones
DQ (digital quotient) as well. Here again,
we have seen women rise to the occasion –
be it in frontline roles or as support roles.
This phase has, in some sense, highlighted
the difference between the proactive and
reactive. Women tend to have strong
intuitions, which could enable her to be a
tad more proactive,” she adds.
India ranks third in the world for women
working in senior management positions,
according to the Women in Business 2021
report by global accounting and consulting
firm Grant Thornton. The percentage
of women in senior management in the
country stood at 39%, as against the global
average of 31%, according to the study.
Says Lakshmi: “This is a good change in
mindset as far as achieving gender parity is
concerned. But, when it comes to financial
services, the number would be much lower.
We have seen women participation increase
only over the past few years – though there
is still scope for further increase. In this
realm, it is more like an inverted funnel -
broad at the base and narrower at the top.
Apprehension of what’s in store for them
in the financial maze leads to exclusion by
choice at most times. In some cases, the
enthusiasm fails to sustain as one moves
higher in the organizational structure and
thus, we see brain drain.”
Lakshmi points out that the pandemic
has legitimized the WFH culture, which in
normal times would have been considered
‘not happening’. There are hybrid variants
of working too that have been devised by
various organizations. She insists: “Women
should grab such opportunities with both
hands and invoke their IQ EQ and DQ
‘astras’ and brave the work world. Chak de
ladies! Cheers to Womanhood.”
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
 Gender Equality
Covid pushes legal improvements in pay & parenthood
A
new World Bank report has
highlighted that while countries
are inching toward greater
gender equality, women around the world
continue to face laws and regulations
that restrict their economic opportunity.
The covid pandemic has in fact created
new challenges to their health, safety and
economic security, the report adds.
The report, ‘Women, Business and the
Law 2021’ that is based on data on the
laws and regulations that affect women’s
economic opportunity, says reforms to
remove obstacles in women’s economic
inclusion have been slow in many regions
and uneven within them. On an average,
women have just three-quarters of the
legal rights afforded to men, it says, adding
women were already at a disadvantage
before the pandemic and government
initiatives to buffer some of its effects,
while innovative, have been limited in
many countries.
“While it is encouraging that many
countries have proactively taken steps
to help women navigate the pandemic,
it’s clear that more work is needed,
especially in improving parental leave
and equalizing pay,” says Mari Pangestu,
Managing Director of Development
Policy and Partnerships at The World
Bank. “Countries need to create a legal
environment that enhances women’s
economic inclusion, so that they can make
the best choices for themselves and their
families,” says she.
In one of her recent blog posts, she
writes: “For the first time in 2 decades,
extreme poverty is rising around the
world, as covid threatens to erode years
of hard-won progress. The World Bank
estimates that the economic fallout from
the pandemic may add as many as 150
million extreme poor by 2021.”
Despite the adversities of the last
year, many economies made gender
equality a priority. Every region improved
its average score, with economies in the
Middle East and North Africa seeing the
greatest increase. Globally, several of the
changes eliminated job restrictions or
aimed to reduce the gender wage gap.
Mari Pangestu recommends
that countries need to create
a legal environment that
enhances women’s economic
inclusion
Other improvements were good-practice
legislation related to marriage and
parenthood or to removing constraints to
women’s entrepreneurship, according to
the report.
IMPORTANT FINDINGS
Overall, the report finds that many
governments have put in place measures
to address some of the impacts of the
pandemic on working women. For
example, less than a quarter of all
economies surveyed in the report legally
guaranteed employed parents any time
off for childcare before the pandemic.
Since then, in the light of school closures,
nearly an additional 40 economies around
the world have introduced leave or benefit
policies to help parents with childcare.
Even so, these measures are likely
insufficient to address the challenges
many working mothers already face, or
the childcare crisis, it says.
The pandemic has also contributed to
a rise in both the severity and frequency
of gender-based violence. Preliminary
research shows that since early 2020,
governments introduced about 120 new
measures including hotlines, psychological
assistance and shelters to protect women
from violence. Some governments also
took steps to provide access to justice
in several ways, including declaring
family cases urgent during lockdown and
allowing remote court proceedings for
family matters.
“Women need to be fully included
in economies in order to achieve better
development outcomes,” said David
Malpass, World Bank Group President.
“Despite progress in many countries,
there have been troubling reversals in
a few, including restricting women’s
travel without the permission of a male
guardian. This pandemic has exacerbated
existing inequalities that disadvantage
girls and women,” he added.
Despite the pandemic, 27 economies
in all regions and income groups enacted
reforms across all areas and increased good
practices in legislation in 45 cases during
the year covered, the report found. The
greatest number of reforms introduced or
amended laws affect pay and parenthood.
However, parenthood is also an area
that leaves the most room for improvement
globally. This includes paid parental leave,
whether benefits are administered by the
government, and whether the dismissal of
pregnant women is prohibited. Reforms
are also needed to address the restrictions
women face in the type of jobs, tasks,
and hours they can work, segregating
them into lower paid jobs. And in 100
economies, laws do not mandate that men
and women be paid the same for equally
valued jobs.
The findings of the report highlights
areas such as updating the data and
relevant details for 190 economies,
considers reforms of laws and regulations
that occurred over the last year and
presents analysis of new and recurring
trends. Over the last 50 years, 3 regions
- OECD high income, Latin America and
the Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa -
have seen a record gain in their average
scores of more than 30 points.
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 29
 Gender Balancing
Women entrepreneurs are on the rise
This is leading to a spiralling growth of MSME and business loans:
E
SAF Swasraya Multi-State Agro
Cooperative Society (ESMACO) is the
first business correspondent of ESAF
Small Finance Bank. It reaches out to over 2
million low-income women through multiple
programs and initiatives that promote
financial inclusiveness and economic
development. Today it is operational in 5
states through more than 311 branches and is
successfully facilitating last mile connectivity
of the bank by functioning as its collection
agent. It has played a significant role in ESAF
Small Finance Bank establishing itself as a
major financial services institution.
The larger objective of ESAF Group as a
whole is to fight the partiality of prosperity.
ESMACO serves to bring various subsidiaries
of Group together and offer seamless service to
its members. ESAF NGO, another institution
in the Group, in association with Small
Farmer’s Agri-Consortium and NABARD,
have already formed 72 farmer producer
organizations in different states. Under the
umbrella of Cooperative Facility Management
Service (CFMS), ESMACO has expanded its
footprints to areas like event management,
office support service, cash management and
Monthly Expenditure Plan (MEP) services.
Information & Communication Technology
supported services, offered by CFMS engaging
well trained service personnel across different
regions in the country, have proved to be the
right launch pad for aspiring job seekers.
Mereena Paul, Chairperson, ESMACO,
provides insights on women customers.
Mehul Dani: What percentage of your
customers are women? What percentage
of your overall business comes from
women customers? How have both these
figures changed over the last few years?
Mereena Paul: Earlier, as an MFI,
100% of our customers were women. Being
the BC of the bank, we have more liberty
in serving both genders effectively, both in
terms of cost and products. Currently, 98%
of our customers are women. We are happy
in serving women as they tend to be more
loyal and are prompt in repayment habits.
Also, more than 95% of our business comes
30 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Mereena Paul advocates
that savings and insurance
products are something that
should be encouraged for
women customers
from women customers.
What changes in demand for financial
services are seen among women
customers in the last 2 years?
Women are now equally or more ambitious
than men. They are aware of the fact that
they need to be financially independent and
want to contribute to their family’s income.
Hence, we are now witnessing more women
graduating from microfinance to MSME and
business loans. Also, we have witnessed a rise
in education loans and housing loans because
of women. Women entrepreneurs are now on
the rise, a fact which too has been spiralling the
growth of MSME loans. As more than 90% of
women entrepreneurs are focused on micro-
enterprises and the informal sector, there is a
huge untapped opportunity for SFBs.
What changes in demand for financial
services do you expect among women
customers in the next 2 years?
As women professionals are now on the
rise, savings among women is one area that
needs to be encouraged. Among the MFI
customers, saving products like recurring
deposit has huge demand. This habit
of savings should be encouraged across
segments. As more women are now willing
to venture into the entrepreneurial route, I
hope we may also witness a surge in MSME
loans, education loans and gold loans. Also
increasing demand for digital channels
could be another behavioural change.
Compared to men, what financial products
do women prefer more and prefer less?
In the MFI segment, women are more
concerned about owning a safe house and
also about its maintenance. They are also
concerned about their business ventures,
children’s education and saving costs while
cooking. Hence house construction/repair
loans, MSME loans, clean energy products
and education loans are something women
prefer more than men. Savings and
insurance products are something we need
to encourage more for women.
What parameters in your credit evaluation
system are more prominent for women
customers than for men customers?
The credit evaluation system is equal for
both men and women. Repayment history
and credit score are the key parameters for
credit evaluation for both men and women.
Have you created any financial literacy
campaigns targeted at women customers?
If yes, please share content samples.
Yes, we have FACE, or Financial Access
and Capacity Enhancement, programs,
which aim at imparting financial and digital
literacy lessons for women customers.
Special modules have been created for the
same. We cover topics from what is KYC
to aspects of financial management like
savings, asset building, wise borrowing,
insurance schemes, pension schemes, fraud
protection, grievance redressal, risk vs
return, unauthorized electronic transaction,
etc. Financial literacy counsellors and other
experts handle the sessions for women
customers, especially SHG/JLG customers.
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
 Compliance
Documentation & Narrative make SAR meaningful
There are often connecting dots between criminal activity and financial
transactions:
C
hhaya Pandya is A ssis tant
General Manager (Accounts) at
Ahmedabad-based Gujarat State
Cooperative Bank and has been working
with the apex level state cooperative bank for
the last 30 years. During her banking career,
she has handled advances, investment and
banking divisions and reported CRT, STR
& other statutory returns to the Income
Tax Department and regulators from
time to time. She has contributed in the
preparation for implementation of various
policies for KYC, deposits, ALM, risk
management policy and compliance in the
bank. Currently, she is handling all types of
audits and compliance including statutory
audit, internal audit as well as tax audit. She
also has been involved in the preparation of
financials and other (MIS) reports. And as
a special task, she handles monitoring on
the timely and accurately submission of all
types of statutory returns to the regulators.
TIMELY FILINGS
Timely filing of SAR, or Suspicious Activity
Reports, help users to identify and respond
promptly to potential criminal activities.
Chhaya Pandya says the bank files on an
average 4 statutory reports every month. She
says late filing of SARs can be particularly
detrimental when terrorist financing is
suspected, where asset seizures are possible,
or when significant fraud threatens the
viability of a depository institution. For faster
process, the bank managements should be
encouraged to contact law enforcement
agencies directly to ensure immediate
attention to the matter.”
RISK MANAGEMENT, TECHNOLOGY
On a micro level, it is beneficial for banks
and financial institutions to establish
comprehensive procedures for SAR
preparation, reviews, and approvals, she
says, adding: “It is important for financial
institutions to establish strong overall risk
management practices, effective policies
and procedures, strong management
information systems, appropriate staffing
and senior management over-sight,
Chhaya Pandya insists that
SAR narrative should provide
extensive tips on what
information to collect and how
to organize it effectively
comprehensive training and periodic
independent testing. Financial institutions
should design AML programs on a risk-
basis and arrange training on recognizing
suspicious activity, so as to maintain an
effective AML compliance program, as well
as protect the institution from potential
abuse by criminals.”
The bank uses CBS solution from Tata
Consultancy Services. Its IT team consists
of 32 persons, and 4 employees are allotted
for SAR functions.
CONNECTING DOTS information, tape recordings, e-mail
According to Chhaya, there are certain
suspicious activities, which are easy to catch
and certain which are difficult to catch.
Financial connections to crime, terrorism,
drug trafficking, money laundering, bank
fraud and other financial crimes are
common patterns of suspicious activity,
says she.
Elaborating, she says: “There are
often connecting dots between criminal
activity and the financial transactions.
Further, incomplete, incorrect, illogical,
or disorganized narratives can make
analysis difficult and adversely affect users’
decisions and they do not describe suspect
relationships or do not explain the nature
of ongoing suspicious activity, which
can reduce the effectiveness of searches.
If the information contained in tables,
spreadsheets and similar attachments is not
punched into the database, then it becomes
difficult to catch suspicious activity pattern.”
DOCUMENTATION, NARRATIVE
Chhaya says there are certain steps that can
help to achieve higher targets and make
better plans for complete and appropriate
SAR information: Collect, organize and
maintain data/information through research
and analysis to gather as much information
as possible about the potentially suspicious
activity. Generally, the guidance indicates
that the filing institution should consider
all pertinent information it has received
through the account opening process and
due diligence efforts.
She says: “One should prepare a
complete and sufficient SAR, the narrative
should provide extensive tips on what
information to collect and how to organize
it effectively. SAR should be complete
as fully as possible. With the suspected
activity, SAR supporting documentation
should be described in the SAR narrative
and should refer to all documents or records
that assist a financial institution in making
the determination that certain activity
requires a SAR filing. Documentation may
include transaction records, new account
messages, and correspondence, account
opening information for all suspects,
account statements for all affected product
types, photocopies (front and back) of all
applicable financial instruments associated
with the suspicious movement of funds,
including monetary instruments and
deposit receipts. Our in-house IT team
generates SARs.”
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 31
 Rural Bank
Women talent propels
progress at APRB
The SBI-sponsored Arunachal Pradesh Rural Bank has taken up several
IT initiatives and is working towards many more:
A
runachal Pradesh Rural Bank, a
scheduled bank, established on
30 November 1983, is sponsored
by State Bank of India. The bank,
situated in the trans-Himalayan region,
with wide variation in scenic beauty from
the plains of Brahmaputra valley to the
snow-clad mountains in the north, has
head office at district Papum Pare. The
bank is committed to provide banking
facilities to all segment of the population
with a branch network of 28 branches.
The bank has several departments at the
head office, most of which are headed by
women officers under the leadership of
chairman Dr Deepak Kumar Gupta.
CENTRAL PROCESSING CLICKS
Tasso Yaming is a Credit Officer of
Arunachal Pradesh Rural Bank. She
has been heading the CLPC (centralized
loan processing cell) team and has 3
employees working under her. The
bank started the CLPC in the year 2018
under the guidance of its Chairman Dr.
Gupta and General Manager Pradeep
Kumar Paul.
Tasso narrates her role and gives
backdrop of CLPC: “I have been
entrusted with the responsibility of
monitoring the proposal received by
the branches and to scrutinize them.
The actual sanction is done by the
Sanctions Committee. Nowadays credit
is one of the most important section
of banking industries and to make it
more advance and comfortable towards
the customers, we have CLPC for the
convenience of branches. Here our main
objective is to give the best service to our
valuable customers by following TAT for
sanctioning of loan. For a personal loan,
we take only 3 days and for a home loan,
only 14 days.”
32 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Tasso Yaming explains
how the bank aims to
enhance customer service
by sanctioning loans under
defined TAT
GROWING ADVANCES
Branches of Arunachal Pradesh Rural
Bank source proposals by sending
scanned soft copy and hard copy through
mail or post after completing all due
diligence from their side. Tasso explains:
“We take a printout and after scrutinizing
the proposals, the committee members
sanction or control the proposal. In
CLPC, we work as a team benefiting
our customers without any hassle of
huge paper works because most of the
processes have been automated.”
Prior to CLPC, as on 31 March 2018
the total advance was `1.77 billion and it
grew to `1.96 billion as on 31 March 2019
and to `2 billion as on 31 March 2020,
showing a yoy growth rate of 10.8% and
1.7% respectively. Some home loans
qualify under PSL, such as affordable
housing finance. After CLPC, that has
become possible.
“In 2018, the total sanctioned amount
was `53.6 million but by March 2019 it
increased to `119.2 million and of late it
has reached `189.7 million in January
2021. This has been an achievement
for the team and a good sign for our
institution for future prospects. After
sanctioning of the proposal to the
branches, we also follow up and monitor
those loans for regular repayment. This
way, the bank’s NPA level is controlled.
APRB is serving their customers with
great dedication thereby extending a
helping hand for their happier life,”
she added.
MAINTAINING CRR, SLR
Cholom Lammaty, 37 years old and
a mother of 2, has been heading the
department of Accounts and Treasury
of Arunachal Pradesh Rural Bank since
2018. She reveals the history of the
department: “Our bank has been actively
managing its treasury since the inception
ie. since 1983 by women officials only.
Currently, we are 2 officers in this
department. Our bank is improving in
many factors slowly but steadily.”
There was a time when CRAR of the
bank was 6.73% in 2015-16. It increased
in the following years as 9.88% (2018-
19) and 10.25% (2019-20). Cholom
underlines: “Whereas now in the current
FY, we have been maintaining CRAR of
10.01 as on December 2020 quarter.”
The bank has its investment advisory
agreement with SBI DFHI and its
investments committee which guides
and helps the department of Accounts
and Treasury in dealing with investments
of the bank. Cholom claims: “We have

Cholom Lammaty points
out that the bank has been
actively managing its
treasury since 1983 by women
officials only
never failed in maintaining our CRR and
SLR and all the returns are filed online
timely and offline whichever is necessary.
Further, I’d also like to add one important
figure which we have continuously tried
to minimize in these years, that is our
accumulated loss, which from `360.8
mn has dropped down to `325.6 mn as
on December 2020. With all these facts
and figures, I’d like to conclude here that
I will continue to give my best with the
dedication and commitment towards my
bank for all the years to come by.”
ATM, MICRO ATM, SOLAR VSAT
Mansi Bansal heads the Information
Technology department of Arunachal
Pradesh Rural Bank with the
responsibility of maintaining the IT
infrastructure and software management
of all the 31 branches of the bank. She,
along with her team of 2 officers have
been successful in launching new branch
in Nacho, Upper Subansiri district with
collective efforts. Mansi provides recent
updates: “We have taken up several IT
initiatives and are working towards
many new technologies. We have been
successful in installing the first ever
ATM machine in Sagalee, in Papum
Pare district. We are under process of
installing a number of micro-ATMs
at all our branches, which will reduce
burden on our staffers and will help
them manage the crowd more effectively.
We have also deployed solar UPS and
solar VSATs in our remote branches,
which have negligible connectivity and
electricity.”
TECH UPGRADATION
The bank also has been successful in
replacing maximum systems in its
branches with all-in-one desktops and
in launching personalized cheque books,
printing of which takes place in the
head office. Mansi points out: “We have
been working on the latest upgraded Mansi Bansal reveals plans to
version of Windows 10. We have also go live on UPI and AEPS very
been successful in launching CTS
soon
scanning. We are also live on Central
KYC Registry, wherein the data of the
customers is maintained centrally which cyber security. Mansi further reveals: “We
is helping in complying with our KYC will also be going live on UPI and AEPS
norms. The bank is introducing new very soon. We are continuously striving
technologies with multiple channels to our best to secure the IT infrastructure of
provide banking services and insurances our bank and will continue implementing
through banassurance channels with upgraded technologies for the betterment.
SBI Life Insurance and SBI General We have been a successful organization
Insurance to the people of Arunachal and are relentlessly trying to work for
Pradesh.” our customers bringing in new initiatives
every now and then to help provide better
IT PLANS customer service and greater employee
The bank has also framed policies relating satisfaction.”
to internet banking, mobile banking and mehul@bankingfrontiers.com
Fast-tracking the Rise - An NBFC Perspective
Financial Services Professionals
Summary: The covid pandemic has only reinforced the criticality
of digital for NBFCs as they adopt integration applications to
manage data and cloud migration has helped organizations to
address the issues of aging infrastructure.
Banking Frontiers March 2021 33
 Cooperative
Social, Digital & Financial Inclusion
Laxmibai Mahila Bank’s digital services and educational activities are
attracting women customers:
L
axmibai Mahila Nagrik Sahakari
Bank in Gwalior is an example of
women empowerment, not just
in the city but in the whole of Madhya
Pradesh. The vision of the bank is to make
women self-employed. Alka Shrivastava,
President, explains: “What was good
for the bank at the inception was that it
was trying to make women financially
efficient as well as involving more and
more women to be become entrepreneurs.
We have been systematically connecting
female customers to the bank through
banking activities, leading them to
become financially independent. They
are entering into many entrepreneurship
programs and joining small to big
businesses with the help of financial
support from the bank.”
RISING BUSINESS & PROFIT
The bank has 3500 women shareholders.
It accepts all types of deposits and offers
a variety of services, including saving
account, current account, recurring
account, fixed deposit, daily collection and
investment schemes. The total amount of
deposits has increased to `703 million as
of 31 December 2020 from `687 million 9
months ago. Says Shrivastava: “The total
number of women depositors has risen
by 1557 to 19,190 and the total amount
of deposits by them has increased by
`363 million to `457 million in the first
9 months of the current financial year.
Self-help groups depositors have
increased by 24 to 184 and their deposits
increased by `20 million to `124 million
in the same period.” only a few people are being given entry
The bank’s advances rose by of `5.6
million to `181 million in the first 9
months of the current financial year. Apart
from auto loans, the bank also provides
housing loans, primary loans, gold loans
and consumer loans to the women SHGs.
Shrivastava says priority sector lending to
total advances in percentage terms has
decreased marginally by 1.17% to 64.82%.
Net profit, after income tax, has increased
34 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Alka Shrivastava claims that
because of several digital
services introduced by the
bank, more and more women
are getting attracted to the bank
from `6 million to `7.39 million and
Capital Fund (eligible for CRAR) is up
by `270,000 to `318.2 million.
COVID SAFETY MEASURES
The bank has been continuing to provide
banking facilities under the covid
guidelines of the government dung the
pandemic. Sangeeta Vaishampayan, CEO
of the bank, says additional counters were
created at the bank for the convenience
of customers and to maintain social
distancing. Within the bank premises,
at a time and the customers are also given
masks and their hands are sanitized at
the time of entry. All the customers
are also advised to use sanitizers while
using ATMs.
The bank also undertakes sanitization
of its premises daily and the employees
coming to the bank are made aware of
the safety standards and of the measures
to protect themselves from infection.
Shrivastava says they were provided
with hand gloves, masks and caps for
protection. Also, all the currency notes
were disinfected.
HOME, GROUP LOANS PREFERRED
Sangeeta Vaishampayan says women,
like men, would like to take different
loans ranging from consumer loans
to education loans to vehicle loans
and group loans. “Nowadays, they are
increasingly taking home loans and
building loans because this gives them
an exemption in the registry and leads
to saving of some money for their family.
Lower income group women show more
interest in group loans, self-employment
loans, indicating they walk shoulder-to-
shoulder with men and raise their level
higher,” she adds.
DIGITAL SERVICES ADDED
The bank offers several digital services
such as ATM, RTGS and SMS banking.
“We are fully computerized and we
have our own server. The core banking
solution has been provided by Jalgaon
Janata Infotech and internet banking
technology by Sarvatra Technologies.
CBS has helped us to create more
confidence in our functions,” says
Alka Shrivastava.
Sangeeta Vaishampayan is of the view
that the expectations of women customers
from banks are expected to change in
the coming 2 years. “I expect that more
women customers will use online banking
facilities like depositing or withdrawing
money online, making FDs online or
taking loans online,” says she.
ONLINE STAFF MEET, AGM
The bank has held its board meetings
and staff meetings online, while AGM
was held following the guidelines and
rules prescribed by the government.
Even in such odd circumstances, the
bank continues to support its customers.
“Despite the moratorium period given by
 Cabs Driving ‘Virangana’
By adopting Self-reliant India (AtmaNirbhar Bharat) theme by Laxmibai Mahila
Bank, voca/tional training is given to underprivileged women. The bank helps
them in the formation of SHGs and finding self-employment by giving them loans
at low interest so that they can be self-reliant. Today, thousands of women are
taking up self-employment schemes offered by the bank and availing loans from
the bank. Sangeeta Vaishampayan, CEO, points out: “Women have also been
prepared by the bank in the field of transportation.”
Alka Shrivastava, President of the bank, has identified such women who
never got out of the confines of their homes and did not have any training in any
vocation. They have now been encouraged to learn driving and such other skills.
Many of them have been given vehicle loans at low-interest rates and subsidy
up to 30% subsidy on the loan. The bank also arranges for them to get transport
permits free of cost and obtain driving licences
Says Sangeeta: “As of now, 20 women in Gwalior city are running pink colour cabs
and they women are called ‘Virangana’, meaning adventurers or heroines. Because
of their dedication and hard work, they have created their own identities in the city.”

Sangeeta Vaishampayan
mentions that bank provides
customers financial statements,
interest certificates, TDS and
other information through email
the RBI, we have seen that our borrowers
have been making repayments in time and
immediately after the moratorium ended.
There are no loan outstanding except the 3
instalments allowed under the moratorium
rules. Our deposits had come down initially
but thanks to frequent tele-calling and
personal contacts with customers, we
could achieve a growth in deposits of nearly
8-10%, which is a matter of pride for us,”
says Sangeeta Vaishampayan.
USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA
The bank’s website contains useful
information about the products and
services, special offers and other services.
The bank is also making uses of Facebook
to publicise its services. Says Sangeeta:
“I find that women are very much active
on social media nowadays. We use
Facebook to give information about
various offers to prospective customers
and about new products. We use email
to provide our customers with financial
statements, interest certificates, TDS and
other information and also promote our
products. Specifically, we sent a ‘thank you’
message to a new depositor through email.”
WHATSAPP MESSAGING
The bank has a call center that provides its
customers with information related to the
services and banking products. Customers
can now print passbooks on their own and
update themselves on the transactions.
The bank also sends emails to customers
informing them about each transaction as
also through WhatsApp messages.
mehul@bankingfrontiers.com

Banking Frontiers March 2021 35

 Cover Story

Venus at Work
The HER Formula
Habits Emotional Intelligence Risk Taking
u u

To celebrate International Women’s Day, we undertook a grand project of doing a special issue on
women achievers. We reached out to over 150 women who are at top positions in the BFSI sector,
with the objective of interviewing all those who responded. We got 29 responses in all, and Sneha
Agrawal, our project manager, interviewed 18 of them over video and 11 by email.
One issue we faced is who should we reach out to. So, we did a dip stick study among young
women, most of them final year students, to find their job preference between private sector,
public sector and cooperative sector. Among 40 participants in this study, 27 chose private sector,
12 chose public sector and 1 chose cooperative sector. Accordingly, we have chosen maximum
number of respondents from the private sector for this project – among banks, insurers and NBFCs.
We feel excited to share the insights and at the same time, we are deeply thankful to all the women
who participated in the study.
36 Banking Frontiers March 2021
 A Special Thank You for making the study a success.
Lincy Therattil Rupa Balsekar
Head - Open Innovation & Managing Director & Head
Fintech Platform, Transaction Banking, BNP
Rise Mumbai, Barclays Paribas India
Shikha Bagai Pratima Thomas
Country Managing Head - HR,
Director - India, Fino Payments Bank
VISTRA Group
L Chiranthi Cooray Rishika Dasgupta
Chief Transformation Head - Customer
Officer, Experience (Cards &
Hatton National Bank Payments Business),
Axis Bank
Ruchi Bubber Vandana Trivedi
Director Analytics - BFSI, Director, Head - Institutional
Fortune 100 Company Sales & Virtual Distribution
Channel, IDFC AMC
Ritu Nazir Shalini Rajani
Chief Marketing Officer, Head - Training &
Raheja QBE General Call Center, Fino
Insurance Company Payments Bank
Ashima Bhat
Group Head - Business
Finance, Strategy,
Administration, Infrastructure
& CSR, HDFC Bank
Loveena Khatwani
Head - Client Experience
- Edelweiss Wealth
Management
Lalitha Bhatia
Chief Operating Officer,
Ageas Federal Life
Insurance Company
Monu Jain
Country Head - Mid
Corporate Banking & SME
Business, IndusInd Bank
Sunita Handa
Chief General Manager, (IT
Channels & Ops), Global IT
Centre, State Bank of India
Jasmin Ignatius Nitu Samra Nilufer Mullanfiroze
Chief Operating Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Country Head - Deposits,
BNY Mellon India LeasePlan India Cards & Retail Unsecured
Lending, Federal Bank
Babitha B P Mabel Chacko Jaya Janardanan
CISO, Founder, Open Financial Chief Operating Officer,
CSB Bank Technologies IndoStar Capital Finance
Shoma Narayanan Namrata Sehgal Noopur Chaturvedi
Executive Director - Group Head - Marketing, Country Head - SMB,
Strategic Marketing & Communication & Social PayU
Communications, Performance Management,
DBS Bank India Sub-K IMPACT Solutions
Sumanlatha Sanghi Mauli Bodiwala Purvi Bhavsar
Head - Account and AGM – HR, The Kalupur Managing Director,
Channel Maintenance, Commercial Co-op Bank Pahal Financial Services
ANZ
Sunita Rath Rajashree Nambiar Sneha Agrawal
Chief People Officer, Former MD & CEO, Project Manager,
Aegon Life Fullerton India Credit Banking Frontiers
Company
Banking Frontiers March 2021 37
 Cover Story
“If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate
a woman you educate an entire family.” - Mahatma Gandhi
Section 1.1
30 Habits for Personal & Professional Success
Men and women are creatures of habits. Habits have a unique way of
making life easier. So, we posed the question: ‘What are the key habits
that have contributed in shaping your professional success?’ And 13
women responded.
Monu Jain explains why we form habits:
“When you acquire a habit, the brain
rewires so that doing that task takes very
little energy and makes it much more
efficient. And that’s the reward you get by
forming good habits.”
With this explanation, let us look at
the habits that some of the women leaders
have adopted. For Rajashree Nambiar,
the key ingredient of her success is self-
discipline. She elaborates: “Self-discipline
about my own health, about the time that
I spent with my family, self-discipline for
compartmentalizing my life and my hectic
work has helped me to manage challenges
of my work-life.”
Another of her habits is cultivating
hobbies, as work is not her whole and sole
priority. “My primary hobby is cooking since
it helps me to de-stress and relax. I also like
running marathons. I try to run for one hour
every day, even while I am travelling, I try to
run across the neighborhood on the roads.”
Rajashree has an interesting hobby,
which she has made a habit. Her third habit
is mandatory travel breaks. She travels every
year during summer to some new country. “I
have visited 39 countries,” she says with pride.
READING, LEARNING
For Shoma Narayanan, reading is the
habit she emphasizes, which has been
with her since her school and college days.
Now-a-days, she reads within the areas of
her expertise and specialization (marketing
communications and sustainability) and
even beyond, ie, books that are of general
interest. Says she: “This is the key of pretty
much any kind of success anywhere.”
Her second habit is to have a learning
habit. She expands: “I make sure on a
38 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Shoma Narayanan has a habit to
regularly reaches out to people
who she works with who are
key stakeholders and schedules
interactions with them
monthly basis that I begin learning a new
skill or continue developing something that
I have not done in the past.”
Her third habit is very mundane and
practical and that is making to do lists
all the time. “When I was a kid, it used
to be lists around what I need to study
for exams, but now obviously it’s about
slightly more evolved stuff. I do believe
that for big projects, using the combination
of technology and good old-fashioned
notebooks helps keep track of deliverables.”
Shoma’s fourth habit is to regularly
reach out to people who she works with who
are key stakeholders. She has scheduled
interactions with them because that’s
important. “Sometimes, if you don’t do
that you miss out on either deliverables or
opportunities,” she explains.
BEGIN WITH THE END
L Chiranthi Cooray is a fan of Stephen
Covey’s habit No 2 - ‘Begin with the end in
mind’. It has been her motto in life. She has
achieved success and excellence in strategy
execution, staying committed to this habit.
Her second habit is writing resolutions
for the new year. “The resolutions are on a
wheel with different spokes, and each spoke
represents a different area. I review it during
mid-year to ensure that I am on track.
Example are family, career, spirituality,
fitness, investments, etc. I generally manage
to achieve quite a bit,” she explains.
Her next habit is more of a personality
than a habit. “I am open and accepting of
people; I believe in humanity,” she says.
Monu Jain has a habit of planning
and being organized. “I am an extremely
calenderized person. It helps you get the
most out of your day. Women play so many
roles like mother, daughter and career
women. There are so many balls we are
juggling every day and this way we can
make sure that no ball falls,” she explains.
Beyond time management, Monu has
the habit of striving for excellence which
has helped her in her professional career.
“It has been innate in me right from the
beginning. It helps me put my best foot
forward,” she describes.
Another pet habit for Monu is
meditation. She feels that it is just not for
the elderly and retired. It helps to soothe
and calm down. “It helps me to increase
my focus and concentration which in turn
increases my efficiency. With spirituality
comes empathy for the people you work
with, for the people around you,” she adds.
PASSION & PLANNING
Nitu Samra has a lot in common with
Monu Jain. Her 2 biggest habits are the two
Ps of her life: Passion & Planning. “These 2
habits have really helped me. If you have the
passion to do something, then nothing stops
you from achieving it. But another critical
element is planning,” she explains.
Like Chiranthi, Lalitha Bhatia too
is a big fan of Stephen Covey. In her days
as a young manager, she found some of
those habits to be really useful. “I tried to
inculcate some of the habits in the book like
being proactive, begin with the end in mind
and synergizing with my colleagues. Some
of these habits are very useful in corporate
world. As women, we are always short of
time. One habit is putting first things first,
which helps you segregate between the
urgent and important and do things which
are important first. I think those are the
habits which are useful.”
Like Shoma, Nilufer Mullanfiroze is
constantly learning what is happening with
customers, with technology, with regulatory
framework, which keep evolving. She
believes in consciously picking a few aspects
to learn continuously, in the domain that
she is working in or aspiring to work in.
She explains further: “In the lockdown,
people discovered or started using their
latent talents more. Learning today is no
more about physically going to an institute
and doing a post-graduate course only;
there are so many online courses. The
concept of learning itself has changed. Sub-
consciously we all do it, but in a conscious
manner to keep doing it has helped me.”
Her other habit is balancing stuff out.
She expands: “There is an old HR concept
of consumer behaviour called balcony
and dance floor, which means you are
continuously on the shop floor trying to
solve day-to-day fires, or you are going to
the balcony and from 30,000 feet view
guiding the teams on what to do. In an ever-
evolving world, it is not either-or. So as a
leader how do you ensure that you manage
and balance out both constant learning
with the team, constant guidance with the
team, and at the same time strategically
Ashima Bhat emphasizes that
her habits are her personality
traits, particularly working hard
and persevering
taking a longer view?”
Balancing out applies to the person
side as well. She quotes Indira Nooyi: “The
professional trajectory and the biological
clock are constantly at a fight.” The peak
career is in 25-30 age category. It is also
the time when women are getting married,
settling and moving to a different house/
city. “So how do you balance that out
as there is no right or wrong answer? It
depends on that situation and on that
moment. How you manage the balance
becomes important,” avers Nilufer.
Her third habit is discipline. She explains
with examples: “If it is not on my calendar,
there is no way I would remember that I
have a doctor’s appointment or have to go
for a school PTA. Each of us has different
styles - some have diaries, some have
fantastic memory, some use digital tools like
notes, posters, calendars, but consciously
managing time in a disciplined way is
important, because then you can allocate
time for everything that is important to you
- family, kids, spouse, work, etc.”
PRIORITIZING A MUST
Mauli Bodiwala explains the problem and
then the habit which is her solution: “Every
day when we get up, we have lots of things like
calls, WhatsApp messages and other of things
to do, and we get diverted to many things. But
what we need to do is, when we start our job,
for the first 15 minutes we should prioritize
the things. We should not attend any calls or
meetings. We should know what we want to
do today and not get diverted. Else we will
go fast, but the direction is wrong. So rather
than doing that, what I prefer is just sit for 15
minutes, just decide what are my priorities for
today, and list down the priorities, then how
I can achieve these priorities, and then I start
working for that.”
She now explains her second habit: “Any
task can never be accomplished by one person
alone; however competent he or she is; you
need a good team. What then is needed is a
‘we’ approach rather than an ‘I’ approach. As
far as you progress in your life, you should
focus more on the ‘we’ approach. Now,
when I meet my team members, I discuss
with them and encourage them to give their
own views. I do not interrupt when they give
their ideas. But of course, the final decision
after getting their ideas is mine only. Of
course, you need to know the strengths and
weaknesses of your team members. Based on
their strengths, I delegate them their work.”
Mauli suggests one should delegate
the work in the first half only, so that they
can have a second half or enough time to
complete that task.
The third habit Mauli highlights is that
when your goal is accomplished, you need
to definitely give the credit to your team
members. Once you give them the credit,
then they will feel motivated, and they again
work with the same energy and enthusiasm.
It is important to make them feel that even
their boss or leader have interest in them.
PERSONALITY TRAITS
For Ashima Bhat, her habits are her
personality traits. She emphasizes the
ability to work hard and the ability for
perseverance. “What I would classify
as a habit is punctuality and sticking to
commitments,” she says.
For Shalini Rajani, passion is her pet
habit. She explains: “I have passion towards
my job, my work, and because I wanted
to retain that passion, sincerity played a
role there. That, I would say, is the most
important role. I have a passion to create
leaders because after initial years of career,
Banking Frontiers March 2021 39
 Cover Story
I found that as you grow, you need more
people with you. So, I have learnt that you
cannot be successful unless you have a great
team along with you.”
Babitha B P first explains the context for
her habits. The key role of a cyber-security
professional is to reduce cyber risk. Cyber
risks can arise due to operational issues,
gaps in physical security or due to network
architecture issues. We need to communicate
these issues to non-cyber security professionals
so that we can make them understand the gaps
and the impact it can bring about along with
solutions to mitigate them.
“We have to cultivate a habit to
communicate in such a way that we can
match the right information to the right
people at the right time, in a way that a non-
cybersecurity professional can understand
and act upon. How efficiently we do that
determines the success of our profession.
Key habits to become a successful cyber
security professional are good analytical
skills, introspection skill, continuous
learning and updated with latest trends
in the cyber world, multi-tasking skills
and above all communication skills,” she
explains further.
Sumanlatha Sanghi shares 4 habits
that have made her successful: “First is
challenging myself to do new things. It is fine
if I fail, but it makes me a better person as I
learn what my strengths are. Second is taking
feedback constructively as they make me see
what I need to improve. But it does not mean
you just listen to feedback; it’s about having
a constructive discussion that enables you
accept what you need to work on. Third is
accepting failure – this had taught me to move
on and become better in the next actions I
take and become positive in my attitude.
Section 1.2
The Age Factor in Developing Habits
Some habits develop during childhood, and some during adulthood:
Sumanlatha Sanghi: Some habits we
learn during childhood at home, school,
community, etc. Others we learn when
40 Banking Frontiers March 2021
2. Take travel breaks
3. Cultivate hobbies
4. Read
5. Learn (new skills)
6. Make to-do lists
7. Interact with stake-holders
8. Passion
9. Plan
10. Prioritize
11. Challenge oneself
12. Take feedback constructively
13. Accept failure
14. Work hard
15. Persevere
16. Effective communication
17. We-approach
18. Give credit to team members
Monu Jain developed the 19. Begin with the end in mind
habit of walking away from 20. Accept people
21. Strive for excellence
perfection towards excellence 22. Meditate
as it makes things faster and 23. Be proactive
smoother 24. Synergize with colleagues
25. Balance
Fourth is being planned and organized and 26. Ask questions
having enough time to relax and have a good 27. Eye for details
personal life too. This creates the energy to 28. Extreme focus
deliver well at work and at home.” 29. Punctuality
Purvi Bhavsar has the longest list of 30. Time Management
habits among our participants. Her first
habit is mentality of asking questions and 30 HABITS THAT STAND OUT
always questioning the status quo. Her So, in summary, these are the 30 habits that
second habit is an eye for details, which successful women leaders have adopted
she has developed over a period of time. She and recommended to attain professional
lists the others as: “Aiming for perfection, success and a balanced life. The list is quite
ie, not wanting to fail as failure is not an exhaustive, but everyone can select what
option, being extremely focused and task would work best for them. Some of these
oriented, reading and punctuality.” are common habits, but some are really out
of the box.
SUMMARY OF KEY HABITS manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
1. Self-discipline sneha@glocalinfomart.com
we start working. For me the habits that I accepting failure. The last one was learnt in
learnt from childhood include being honest, school when one is always the topper.
working hard in terms of doing my best and Some habits that I learnt during my work
life include networking (interacting with
different people and connecting with them
differently), being positive and open to learning
new things and finally, being empathetic while
managing people and learning to accept their
strengths and areas of development.
Babitha B P: When we talk about
habits it can be inborn talent or which we
have acquired from our mentors. Being a
CISO, knowledge of security across various
platforms is very much important and one
should be aware of the latest technologies
and latest attack vectors. I was a part of
the IT team for over 17 years. I got the
opportunity to work in all fields in IT like
development, network, operations and
digital channels in different capacities and
roles. The experience and knowledge I have
gained during this period have supported
me to succeed in my role as a CISO.
The habit that has led me to a leadership
role is the ability to understand others.
As a leader, it means understanding how
they think and why they do the things
they do. All these helps to create a better
work environment.
Lalitha Bhatia: I love reading and it
has been my hobby since childhood.
I think when you are a young manager,
most of the times your focus is on trying to get
things done. You are not so much mature and
you tend not to listen to others. As I matured
and reached middle management and now
senior management, I think the habit is to
first understand and then take action. Over a
period of time, I have developed this habit - I
listen more to my colleagues, team members,
outsiders and customers to understand
their point of view. Listening helps you to
understand people better.
Also learn to sharpening the saw, ie
improve all aspects of life and learn on
many areas such as latest developments.
You tend to develop these habits better with
experiences as you grow in life.
Many people had this problem during
lockdown that they could not segregate
personal and professional lives. I have
a separate workplace in my house and
a separate place where I would like
to relax. I never worked in places like
my bedroom.
In the lockdown lot of things happen
so suddenly, that you really did not have
Nilufer Mullanfiroze learnt to
balance professional career
and biological clock as she
became older
time to adjust to it. So, prioritize and being
systematic really helped. My office space is
totally uncluttered and I like to keep a clean
desk. I had the same thing at home also.
Ashima Bhat: Hard work and to be
honest to yourself were ingrained in me as
child. Time management and the ability to
keep commitments came in the early years
of my work life.
Nilufer Mullanfiroze: Constant
learning right from school and college was
about reading different aspects. So, while
I am BCom and an MBA marketing by
background, I liked economics and political
science, and for learning in those days, the
only option was reading books. So that came
early in life and that habit was built sub-
consciously. Balancing professional career
and biological clock is something I learnt as
I became older and out of necessity.
There was no break between work and
home during the lockdown. The concept
of discipline changed - how to break work
and personal life, that was a recent learning.
As the physical environment (moving
from office to home) was not changing,
having a disciplined way of managing time
became important.
Lockdown brought an introspection of
what is important in life - are we balancing
life well. It gave time to read something
different. I had learnt French in school. I
used an app to improve my French skills all
over again.
Shalini Rajani: When I started my
career, the most important thing then was
to earn. Hence there was a desire to be
financially independent, to earn. As I grew,
I realized that money will keep on coming if
you are working hard. So, in the later stage,
the idea was more to be constructively
occupied with work. One should be able to
learn something new everyday in one’s life.
The second phase is more constructive than
the money.
Rajashree Nambiar: Obviously, the
self-discipline habit came on very earlier
in my life, during my school and college
days when I was very competitive. In India,
especially during the time I was growing
up, it was survival of the fittest. Hence
one had to be very self-disciplined about
the investment of time they put for their
academic career.
I have always had a self-bias for action.
I am self-driven. As I started working
and became a mother, balance in life and
compartmentalizing my work and life and
finding time for hobbies became the habits.
Now, making time available to spend with
my family came in later in life, as the
pressure and demands on me became more.
I have realized that I am very restless
and hyper trying to do many things at the
same time. Hence, I have just started to
develop mindfulness through meditation
Shoma Narayanan: Reading and
making a to-do list are the things that
came naturally to me and hence I am doing
that all through my career. Making time
for learning was an acquired habit and it
took some time to embed. That is because
once you start working and you get into
the day-to-day regimen of deliverables,
targets, plans you sometimes forget to
focus on self-development, preparing for
the next level, etc.
Reaching out to people is interesting.
When you are young, most of your
stakeholders you meet regularly, you talk
to them often and you’re pretty much know
what is happening. When you grow older,
you actually realize the need to schedule
these meetings to have more structured
conversations. That was a learnt habit over
Banking Frontiers March 2021 41
 Cover Story
a period of time.
Exercising is one thing I used to miss
out on. This is perhaps the biggest one
that I developed during the lockdown -
exercising regularly.
Maul Bodiwala: First habit is that
whenever I was in school or college, I was
always prepared for the day. At that time
of course the goals were different, like
completing a certain percentage of my
syllabus. You need a soft-board where you
can mention everything that you want to do
today. The same habit I am continuing now.
The other thing, which is very
important, is to be informed. Whenever I
was studying, I always knew what are the
alternatives available for my career. For that
you need to have a good interaction with the
team members and colleagues. For career
progression you can have the help of your
seniors. So, these are the habits which were
developed in the earlier part of my life,
which are still helpful to me currently.
A habit which I developed later on is the
‘we’ approach rather than the ‘I’ approach.
Because till the time you are studying
you are more focused on your own life.
When I was working as a credit officer, I
was more focused on the credit appraisal,
because I was working individually, I was
just reporting to one head. But as and when
I progressed in my life, I am now an HR
head and have a team of around 7-8 people
and I look after 850 staff members. So,
now I cannot have an ‘I’ approach, because
my designation is different, my roles
and responsibilities are different. So, the
approach gradually shifted.
L Chiranthi Cooray: Habit of believing
Section 1.3
In Search of New Habits
The professionals reveal what new habits they would like to develop:
Sumanlatha Sanghi is working on 2 habits
to become better. The first is learning to ‘let
go’ whether at home or at work, which will
enable her to support wider things and do
more. The second habit is to manage stress
42 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Babitha B P is developing
her communication skills to
explain highly technical things
in a simple way so that non-
technical people can also
understand
in humanity is innate and of second nature
to me. I related to it even as a child. The
resolution writing concept was developed
later in life. Other little habits include
making to do lists and checklist. Time is
of essence to me hence I have learnt to
economize on time and follow the reduce,
re-use and recycle habit.
Monu Jain: Most of the habits were
developed earlier in my life. For example,
striving for excellence, I have been number 1
in everything I do. In fact, I was leaning into
perfection which I am trying to move away
better using tools like yoga and outdoor
activities. “I have been trying to learn this
for some time now,” she says.
Shalini Rajani says that though at
this level she has learnt a lot in her career,
from now, so distinguishing between striving
for excellence and perfection is important.
When I was on my journey to excellence,
I gave my 120% to make everything perfect.
Gradually, I realised that there is an
optimum level and then there’s perfection.
The journey from optimum level to
perfection takes so much energy that other
bits fall in the process. The habit of walking
away from perfection is something I have
learnt with great difficulty. It makes things
faster and smoother. You get there at 99%
rather than 100%, but it works.
Another is diligence. I have a kind of
OCD for planning and organizing but it
helps me so much - everything is in place
and you save so much time.
Nitu Samra: Passion has always been
there and over the years, it has developed.
If I go back to my older working days, my
training and my internal passion have
always been there because there has been a
zeal to do something. When you have that
zeal, you have that passion, because it’s very
important to put your energies at the right
place. You have to see where your passion is
going and how you bring it towards what’s
the important thing in of your life right now.
Planning started developing in me
when I was doing my qualification. I did my
CA along with my graduation. Along with
college, internship, CA, that’s quite a bit of
juggling, so that is where it started. Over the
years it has risen to the next level.
Pur vi Bhavsar: Obsession for
perfection came in very early, while
delegation with efficiency came in later.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
but somewhere she finds herself behind
in the technical aspects. “So, I think it is
something I need to build up in me. So, my
team helps me. One should accept his/her
own weak point also,” she says.
 Purvi Bhavsar wants to develop her
ability to read more and concentrate -
something that she has lost in last 2-3 years.
She also wants to improve her writing skills
and is working on her vocabulary.
Babitha B P is developing her
communication skills to explain highly
technical things in a simple way so that
non-technical people can also understand.
Mauli Bodiwala thinks that quick
decision making is very important. One
has to be informed, but nowadays, so much
information is available from such a variety
of sources. “If you get information but don’t
take a quick decision, you are not able to
get the results. And you need to have a
trust in your decisions. It may be correct or
incorrect, but just delaying other decisions
will not give you the required results. I am
trying to develop that habit that I can take
quick decisions,” she shares.
L Chiranthi Cooray would like to use her
time productively to do different activities -
for example needle work. “I also have a bad
habit of biting the edges of my nails. I am
consciously trying to stop it,” she reveals.
Nitu Samra says that although she is a
planned person, one thing that she wants to
Section 1.4
Proof that Habits make a Difference
Our experts narrate incidents of how habits have helped them during
tough times in their professional success:
Lalitha Bhatia: I think we are what we
are because of our habits. I have this habit
where I generally tend to synergize with
people. When you deal with people, if you
show them that this will help both, it really
helps you to get out of difficult situations.
We get a lot of customer complaints
where we actually see what we can do so
that it helps both the company and as well
as the customer. I have found that it really
helps when you actually try to think win-
win and you are able to work on the fact
that what is good on both the sides and
reach a mid-path. This way, you can really
Lalitha Bhatia emphasizes
the importance of health for
women and recommends
having targets for physical
stamina and mental strength
achieve in my personal and professional life,
is discipline. Discipline of doing something
regularly, particularly things which are
of intangible - specifically she wants to
avoid confrontations. It has helped me a lot.
When you are working on audits, I
think this approach really helps. You have
to ensure that both parties feel good at the
end, rather than push somebody down and
then you feel that you have won. We must
learn to agree to disagree and ensure that
nobody feels bad about it.
Habits help you all the time. I have
seen that they help in both professional
a n d p e r s o n a l l i v e s . Yo u c a n n o t
compartmentalize your habits in that sense,
because the way you are at home is the way
you go to be in office. I don’t think you can
develop peace of mind via meditation.
“This is my resolution to get regular
with somethings which don’t give you
immediate benefit but will give you
long-term benefits. From 2021, I have
implemented a habit tracker which I used
to track some of my habits like exercise,
yoga, meditation, drinking water, reading
a book, etc. I track it on a daily basis
and then at the end of the month I see
how many days I have done it. I have a
demanding job and 2 kids. I want to do
lots of things to invest in myself which
needs a lot of planning, but at the same
time discipline also of leaving what is not
important, and focusing on these things is
important,” she reveals.
Ashima Bhat says that given the
current situation, she thinks all of us need to
seriously learn how to respect each other’s
time and have concern for people’s time.
For Rajashree Nambiar, while she
was at home during lockdown, there was a
quest to learn new things, reskill and look
at life with a new lens. That is what her
future plan is.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
be a different personality. Habit is one thing
that you carry forward from your home to
your office and office to your home.
In March, which was a very tough
time for most insurers, my husband had
actually fractured his leg. And I remember
my mother-in-law actually came in March
and helped me. And so that is why when
you synergize with people, they also feel it’s
important to help you.
Also, you really have to segregate urgent
and important. What happens daily is
that e-mails and phone calls become very
urgent, but sometimes they may not really
Banking Frontiers March 2021 43
 Cover Story
help you achieve your goals. So, you really
will have to segregate into what priority
you give. 20% of your things are the most
important…. focus on them.
I don’t let others drive my priority. I
have my list of important things which I do.
Ashima Bhat: During the 2 two
months, the functions that I held were
medical. My work was about managing
the covid situation, like shutting down,
opening and sanitizing the office, taking
care of employees’ health, their families’
health. That indicated a very strong ability
to work hard and to be available at any
point of time. It is like a trait which I have
consciously done. The last 10-11 months
were crazy and everything that I had
learnt came to the fore. And the ability to
be compassionate. All employees worked
together and managed the situation.
Habits cannot be switched on or off.
I think they are personality traits. They
started as habits like consciously managing
time. Over time they became ingrained.
Hard work is my dominant trait. I do
prepare a complete to-do list every day.
Shoma Narayanan: Recently I
have been working on a project which is
rebranding a whole set of branches that
DBS had acquired when an Indian bank
was amalgamated with us. It was a fairly
complex project with tight timelines
because there are more than 500 branches
across the country, and I was working with
my team and agency partner.
So being structured, making lists, putting
down ideas when they come in, have all really
helped. We have a fair number of more
evolved management tools, but I still feel
that pen and paper still work the best for me.
I think they help me continually. Of
course, it also depends on which habit and
exactly how tough the tough time is.
Nilufer Mullanfiroze: Some 7-8
years ago, when I was asked to lead a
project on digital banking enhancement,
I was having a conversation with a peer
from home about it. Then my kid (12-
13 years old) heard the conversation. He
said ‘You don’t know how to fix the home
Wi-Fi; how will you build a digital bank?’
Constant learning is a habit for me. It was
a good introspection. Then there have been
periods of time in my career when progress
44 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Shalini Rajani realized that
money will keep coming if you
are working hard, and hence
in the later stage, it is better
to be constructively occupied
and keep learning
would also mean a change of location,
depending on family requirements. I have
not volunteered to take the promotion or
ask for the promotion indirectly, but it was
a conscious decision. So even if I have to
move cities and take a larger job a year
later, in a 30–40-year career it doesn’t
matter. But for a kid starting school, going
from primary to secondary, getting into
a college, are once in lifetime events. So,
as a parent maybe those 3-4 years taking
a backseat professionally, but personally
putting over effort and time into family
was I think a conscious decision. I believe
taking conscious decisions makes you to
be more at peace so that you know you are
balancing life and be happy overall with
professional life as well as personal life.
Shalini Rajani: I can share a few
incidents. Last year, I suffered a brain
haemorrhage. I didn’t know I was going
to live or not. And of course, the covid
period. All these periods have taught me
the importance of will power. I had a
strong will power and desire to continue.
My husband helped me a lot, and so did
my organization. Being strong in your
professional life, having passion towards
work helps you to fight these kinds of
problems in life.
Habits are made over a period of time.
They are not just suddenly made. From
your childhood to your professional life,
habits keep changing. In my early career
years, people groomed me well. They did
their job 20 years ago. Now it is my job
to do the same with my team members.
For any successful leader there is a team
behind. So, you have to create a successful
team which can give rise to future leaders.
Sumanlatha Sanghi: Having a habit of
doing things in an organized manner has
always helped me do well in work. This
is a habit that I have from my childhood
instilled by my parents and in school by
my teachers. When you clearly have goals
in mind, it’s good to have a detailed plan
to help guide you to achieve it. Short term
and long terms plans enable you not to
lose sight of small things that may impact
your journey. This is useful when I was
required to set up/ build new teams, new
processes with no precedent. It also helped
me foresee risks that may cause an issue
and plan for them.
Habits are not built and used when you
want them. It’s part of your personality
and help you in your day-to-day life. Some
habits while they may be good in some
situations, may be not so good in others. So,
it’s also important that you are conscious of
yourself and make changes in your habits
as per the situation.
Rajashree Nambiar: Best example is
covid. In the first week, I was wondering
and confused about what to do but the self-
discipline kicked into action very quickly.
And that habit allowed me to have a very
structured life during the lockdown. I
used the lockdown period to get fitter as
I realized health and immunity are the
armoury against covid. I invested in health
that’s why very soon I could commute
back to office daily. Since my job is so
demanding, focusing on good health has
helped me withstand my hectic career life.
L Chiranthi Cooray: ‘Begin with the
end in mind’ has helped me to become a
holistic solution provider and go to the
root cause of the problem and find lasting
solutions. It has it’s good and bad. If you
overdo it, you tend to over perfect it,
which takes time, and the stakeholders get
impatient. You should know how and when
to moderate the habit to get the best results.
Babitha B P: In my life, especially
in my profession, I have taken up many
challenging jobs and proved myself. That’s
the sole reason my management has trusted
me and supported me to take this position
as CISO. I am the first lady CISO in the
Indian banking industry.
Whichever field we are working, if we
have a positive attitude and have a mind
to take the challenge, we will succeed and
hard work pays. We should be passionate
about the work we do especially in this field,
where we are learning every day.
Monu Jain: Habits shape a person.
Your actions are actually the distillation of
all your habits put together. It shows in your
day-to-day life. This has helped me during
challenges like covid.
It has been very stressful for the financial
sector because of the uncertainty and
unpredictability. We have adapted and learnt
from the new situations, such as how to get
on with the new age digital media, how to
interact with people, new ways of synthesizing
data, new ways of gathering information
on what’s happening with the corporates,
picking up more on what’s happening in the
economy. All these came from the basic habits
of learning perseverance and diligence.
Nitu Samra: Professionally, my last
6 years as CFO for Lease Plan have been
highly demanding where I have to partner
with the business and at the same time
Section 1.5
Easy & Proven Techniques for Building Habits
Our experts tell us their technique to speed up adoption of habits. Quite
a variety:
S
halini Rajani: As I grow older, I see
around me people not interested to
learn from the new generation; they
feel only what they have done over a period
of time is correct. I am little different; I am
very open to learn. The youth, my team
members, even my own son, they keep
Mauli Bodiwala thinks that
quick decision making is very
important and is trying to
develop that habit
focus on the core finance work. Both my
habits came in handy. It is not possible
without planning in a demanding role like
this. While planning helps, with passion
you end up enjoying it. There is nothing
more satisfying than this.
If I talk about a personal example, it started
helping me when my elder daughter started
to go to school in 3rd or 4th standard, and she
needed some attention in studying. My habit
helped me manage this. Not just planning in
terms of how to help my daughters, but also
to make them independent. So that they can
teaching me. This helps me a lot.
The new generation comes to me with
their ideas. Even though I have my own
ideas, I want them to run their ideas first.
My team members keep on coming with
new technical aspects or other information
to me, and they keep teaching me also.
also plan and do things passionately.
Purvi Bhavsar: Having a very focussed
and task-oriented mind set during the
crisis situation like covid has helped me
navigate the team well and ultimately get
out of the crisis with least damage! My
habit of detailing and ability to understand
the trends have helped us avoid certain
geographies in terms of business expansion.
This in turn has helped us perform better
during difficult times.
Your habits must become your routine
and way of life. You can’t really recall it
when you need it during tough times. It
does not work that way!!
Mauli Bodiwala: I have a habit of
never saying no. Sometimes people say
that you should be able to say no also. But
I had a habit that most of the times I never
say no. So, about 5-6 years ago, RBI was
conducting a case study competition and
they invited all the banks to participate in
that. I was not much inclined to participate
in that event. But at that time, our bank’s
chairman insisted that there should be a very
good participation from our bank. So, as I
didn’t have a habit of saying no, I decided
to try. And there is my habit that once I do
something, I put my 100% in that. So, for
the first time I came to know that I have a
good writing skill too. I was not knowing
this, but because someone insisted, I started
writing. I got the first prize in that case study
competition, thanks to my habits and skills.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Learning is the most important thing, at
any age. No matter how old you are, how
senior you are, you have to learn every day.
So never say no to learning.
Lalitha Bhatia: I was reading Robin
Sharma’s book and he has said that it
takes 21 days to inculcate a habit. There
Banking Frontiers March 2021 45
 Cover Story
are things I want to do like adopting some
hobby, reading a book or getting into
gardening. I want to do something which
is away from the routine. Being with plants,
taking care of them gives a kind of mental
refreshment, and that helped me during the
lockdown. I was able to work more on more
habits, like I started walking to improve my
physical strength. Earlier, I would not get
time. So, if you can devote time, you can do
it. Working on your physical health is very
critical, especially for women. Take care of
yourself and have certain targets towards
physical stamina and also towards your
mental strength.
Nitu Samra: I do invest in reading a
lot of motivational content which helps
me to do things more passionately. It gives
me the zeal that I need to achieve more in
life. I recommend having a simple to-do
or calendar to plan effectively. The other
habit comes from the book Seven Habits
of Highly Effective People. It says ‘dos and
calendars are the first level of planning.
Over the years, I have come to the 2nd and
3rd levels, which include categorizing what
is more important and what is more urgent.
Continuous learning is another way,
and if I don’t have that in my plan, I won’t
be investing in myself.
Rajashree Nambiar: I use a diary.
When I am at a crossroad, I write down
what good and bad are going on. If there are
any challenges that are bothering me, then I
change my style or course of action. When I
write down, I get more clarity. As I changed
the course, I realize there are new things
to be adapted and bought into practice. I
Section 1.6
Habits that Create Patterns of Success
What habits are particularly recommended for women….Our experts
recommend habits for aspiring women:
L
alitha Bhatia: Time management -
managing your urgent and important
work in both your personal and
professional life. Also work on mental and
social quotient. It is important to balance
46 Banking Frontiers March 2021
L Chiranthi Cooray has
achieved success and
excellence in strategy
execution, staying committed
to the habit of beginning with
the end in mind
believe putting your mind on paper brings
in a lot of clarity. It throws light on what you
need to be doing in the short and medium
term ahead.
Maul Bodiwala: Everyday, we come
to know about the good things, but if
we convert them into implementation,
and that too on a daily basis, only then it
becomes a habit. So, if I decide one thing,
I continuously follow it up for the next 30
days. If you do it for 30 days, from the 31st
day it will definitely become your habit.
There is another strategy I follow to
personal and social life and to learn the
art of time management. You also need
to work towards your physical and
spiritual strength.
Nilufer Mullanfiroze: Women tend to
remember things. For something which I
have read and I want to know it again and
again, I just try to read it again within 24
hours. Then, I repeat it every 7 days, and
then I again repeat it after 30 days.
I love teaching as well. So, when I teach
my students, I tell them that if you develop
this habit, you will definitely remember
things. These are the techniques which I
apply for formation of habits.
Monu Jain: It is more sub-conscious
rather than conscious. Clearly, repetition is
the key. Your brain gets rewired. But you
also need to pick up some rewards when
trying to adopt a new habit. You need to
say: ‘If I do this, I will give myself this.
Dopamine has to kick in.’
Shoma Narayanan: One of the things I
try to do is to lock one habit on to another.
For example, I already used to read, and so
when I decided to start on to my learning
journey, I figured that I am going to spend
X amount of time reading in a day in any
case. So, rather than reading something
that was just general interest, I used to
ensure that in a month I read at least 2-3
books, which would help with some kind of
learning or other. Similarly, with exercising
– set a specific time. If you don’t do that you
tend to delay it.
Purvi Bhavsar: If I am convinced that
something needs to be corrected or needs to
be adopted, I just go after it! Keep practising
- I think that is the only way to go!
Babitha B P: My mind is always positive
and ready to accept and learn new things.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
be far more cautious before applying for
a job or raising their hand in a meeting.
They take fewer risks compared to men.
This would be advantageous in a constant
world. But in a world that is constantly
changing, by the time you are perfect, the
world has changed. Not speaking up gives
the impression that women can’t think on
their feet. So, in a project that needs quick
decision making, women tend to get locked
off. So, you have to take more risks if you
want to be at the frontline, if you want to
be in sales, if you want to speak at a public
forum. So, my style is that if I am 80% sure,
I will voice my opinion.
Men have an advantage that they network
and socialize after office hours, whereas most
women are back home. So, I recommend
women use the lunch time to network with
everyone, not just women. I recommend a
KPI such as meeting one person outside the
department every week over lunch.
Shalini Rajani: I don’t want any
women to be in the comfort zone. I don’t
want any woman to think that because
she is a woman, she should be looked at
differently. I also do not want men to think
differently that because she is a woman, she
cannot do a particular task or that she may
like to go early or things like that. I would
like women to be very strong, very confident
about themselves and self-reliant. She
should make out that she is self-confident
and independent.
Shoma Narayanan: Taking out time
for yourself is important. It is something
that the average human does not do,
especially Indians. I am very happy to see
that young people who are still in college or
have just started working are much better
at this than people of my generation. Part
of it may be because later on in your career
you get married, you will have kids, you
are always putting either families or jobs
or someone else’s priority ahead of yours.
So, take out X amount of time for doing
something dear to you or for learning or
for relaxing…whatever.
Sumanlatha Sanghi: Constantly be
ready to learn and reinvent yourself. Also,
create more time for yourself to avoid
the guilt of not having personal work life
balance. Engage in your hobby or sport that
you like.
Communication - be open in sharing
thoughts and ideas and not bother about
what others will think.
Networking - move out of your comfort
zone and meet new like-minded people.
Nitu Samra wants to achieve
discipline of doing something
regularly, particularly things
which are intangible – such as
peace of mind via meditation
Rajashree Nambiar: Women are still
a minority in corporates. Most of the times
when I reach out and discuss, women could
have self-doubts, concerns and may need
help. Women should reach out and form
informal networks with each other where
they can lean on each other. Women should
do this very consciously and actively.
Also, women should informally have
fun at the workplace and bond with each
other. We bond through food and days like
sari day. Women should invest some of their
time and mind in forging relationships.
With doing so much of work at home and
office, women become transactional – this
they should avoid.
Maul Bodiwala: Working women
should focus on inculcating the habit of
taking care of self. Women should have good
habits of eating healthy food and exercising.
If you are healthy you can succeed in your
professional life and personal life.
Babitha B P: CISO role is an extremely
challenging and interesting role. In security
field, we have to take care of multiple things
at a time also under pressure. God has
gifted women with multi-tasking skills and
they are able to withstand pressure. I have
always felt women can have a wonderful
career in the security field, if they have
passion to learn new things.
Monu Jain: A woman ends up managing
a lot of things with a lot of responsibilities
and with a lot of care. Because of the high
EQ that women have, they are able to be
very efficient at work.
Planning and organizing become the key in
managing the house, the children and shaping
the future. It is a very critical habit to ensure
that you have good time management. And
that you make your day expand and elongate.
With focus on preparedness and planning
you can make sure that every meeting is
crisp, chaos is minimized and the day
is more productive. This is one very
important habit.
Nitu Samra: Usually, women think
about being perfect. I would like to say
women need to be brave rather than
perfect. It’s ok to go wrong in some places
it’s ok if something is cluttered, it’s ok to
let certain things go, but I think it’s more
important you live a better life, a more
daring life rather than go after perfection.
It’s not a habit but it’s something I am
trying to inculcate even in my daughters. It
is difficult to be perfect with so many things
going on and that feeling of not being
perfect makes you feel let down.
Purvi Bhavsar: Women should
inculcate the habit of balancing personal
and professional life – being successful in
one at the cost of other is no good!
‘I can do it’ – develop a habit of being
self-confident and self-motivated.
One habit that I would strongly
recommend for women is to be finance
savvy - understand the basics and don’t be
overly dependent on others!
Ashima Bhat: For married women,
the focus often shifts to family. And often
the time that you have for yourself gets
very limited. Senior women like me have
high pressure jobs and we need to make a
conscious effort to keep time for ourselves.
We must inculcate this habit and focus on
own physical well-being and health.
L Chiranthi Cooray: A strong work
ethic. Being better organized and having
the presence of mind and a certain high
level of consciousness.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 47
 Cover Story

Section 2.1

Emotional Intelligence – A Formidable Friend

The covid pandemic has proved to be a formidable crisis. Fortunately,
mankind has a mighty resource that it can rely on to handle such
challenges - Emotional Intelligence (EI). But, EI does not come naturally
or easily to everyone. So, Sneha Agrawal from Banking Frontiers
embarked on a journey where she interviewed 8 women leaders on
how they enhance their emotional intelligence. These ladies opened
up and shared freely about their understanding, their approaches and
their techniques:

I
t is important to understand what
exactly emotional intelligence is
before discussing methods used by
people to enhance it and derive benefits.
Psychologists Mayer and Salovey define
emotional intelligence, or EI for short, as
one’s capacity to (i) perceive, process and
regulate emotional information accurately
and effectively, both within oneself
and among others, and (ii) to use this
information to guide one’s thinking and
actions and to influence those of others.
Simply put, EI encompasses self-awareness,
self-regulation/management, social skills,
empathy, motivation and passion.
Now, here are the views that the
interviewees have on EI, its many facets
and the varied uses:
Shikha Bagai shares an overview. She
says that while EI is an all-encompassing
dimension of how we live our life, it is a
fancy term that we have overhyped in the
modern days of formal psychology. She sees
it as a basic trait to live our lives. “For me, EI
is about how you experience life, and how
you enable other people to experience you
as a human being in various roles that you
play,” she explains.
She also believes that human beings
are social animals and social interactions
are one of the basic expressions. For any
social experience, emotional intelligence is
crucial, she adds.
On the personal side, she focuses on
building and improving life skills every
single day to create a life which is more
pleasant for herself and the people around
her. “I start my day with meditation, and to
me it’s a key element of how I experience life.
Other things would include life lessons, the
Rajashree Nambiar invests a
lot in personal relations and
seeks to learn about people,
their background, their family
and their after-hours interests
more we live life with complete involvement,
the more we optimize our expression, we
keep getting better at IE,” she elaborates.
Rajashree Nambiar gives a work
perspective. She says that she invests a lot in
personal relations in order to enhance her
EI. “When I work with someone, I spend
time consciously to know about them, their
background, family, after-hours interests. It
really helps me to understand the person,”
she elaborates.
OVERCOMING STRESS
Is EI a solution to stress?
Loveena Khatwani, believes it is.
Says she: “Over the last few years, I have
developed more awareness about what
triggers stress within myself. Once you know
the trigger, managing the same is fairly
simple. This has taken time, introspection
and a lot of efforts on my part. Additionally,
empathizing with others came naturally to
me, but I had to work on my social skills to
help others look up to me.”
She insists that understanding about
EI has helped her deal with many difficult
situations that have come her way.
Sunita Handa narrates her experiences
in her present assignment: “Working in IT
usually means working under pressure and
responding many times to ambiguous, vague
and frequently changing requirements.
Technologies you use change faster than you
can imbibe them, and problems often have a
wide range of possible solutions, or no clear
solutions at all. A high EQ is essential for
working effectively and sustainably in such
an environment, as it helps you regulate your
thought process and behavioural tendencies
and consciously choose your responses,
especially under pressure.”
DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY
Rishika Dasgupta looks at things with a
positive frame of mind, which goes a long
way in enhancing EI. “Over the years, I have
learnt to listen more and talk less, respond
more and react less. However, I still have
a long way to go,” she says, highlighting
that the real challenge is to learn to listen
for understanding and respond instead of
reacting to create a conflict. “I religiously
try to follow a ‘Don’t worry, Be Happy’
modus operandi,” she asserts.
Ritu Nazir agrees and adds: “It is not

48 Banking Frontiers March 2021

always important to answer. First you have
to listen. In conflict situations, responding
instead of reacting plays a huge role.”
Rishika gives a simple example about
seeing the positive side. She says the year
2020 was a washout and everyone seems
to be complaining about not getting a
raise, not able to go on vacations, not able
to socialize, etc. “But I believe we all need
to take a pause and be thankful that while
nothing good happened, well nothing bad
happened either!”
On a personal note, she says: “I haven’t
met my parents for 15 months and it made
me really depressed at times. But after that
momentary unhappiness, I always make it
a point to feel grateful that they are safe and
in good health.”
Relationship management, effective
listening, ability to connect, identifying the
triggers which impacts emotions and most
importantly managing those emotions are
what EI is all about, she summarizes.
LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCES
The best way to improve emotional intelligence
is observing closely your inner-self as well
as your surroundings, recommends Sunita.
“Life is full of examples and experiences, some
good some not so good. But each example or
experience is a learning. Some leaders become
your role models and you tend to imbibe their
social management traits. There are some
others observing whom you will learn what
not to do. You are at an advantage when you
learn from others’ mistakes rather than your
own,” she says.
She also reminds that Improving EQ is
a matter of changing behaviors that were
learnt, many of which have their roots in
early childhood and have been hard-wired
as default, as automatic responses in the
neural pathways in our brains. Changing
those behaviors is a matter of consciously
creating new behaviors and repeating those
until they become new defaults, overriding
the older habits, she adds.
EI AT WORK
Rajashree Nambiar says she improves
her EI at the workplace by looking at each
member differently as she understands that
each person has a different driver, and needs
to be understood and treated differently. “I
Rupa Balsekar has always
attempted to put herself
in other’s shoes and made
conscious efforts to stay
connected with teams and
individuals
make a conscious effort to understand the
driver - which could be power or money or
status or work life-balance. Many times, I
tend to be judgmental, but then I also try
to suspend it. Much of it comes from being
a mother.”
Rupa Balsekar understands EI as a
continuous learning journey. “As the leader
of transaction banking for BNP Paribas in
India, my job requires me to be adept at
people management and be a keen listener.
I have always attempted to put myself in
other’s shoes,” says she.
Arguably, the pandemic has been the
biggest teacher for them all, she says, as
it did make everyone a remote worker for
months at a stretch. Consequently, in the
last one year, Rupa has made conscious
efforts to stay connected even more with
teams and individuals. And she always
stands ready to challenge her comfort zone
by interacting with people from diverse
backgrounds and experiences.
PERSONAL PROGRESS
Ritu Nazir contends that EI is far more
important than IQ. EI helps you to be
competitive in terms of relationship
management, understanding, listening,
skill building, empathizing and being
approachable, she says, and this is
important not just professionally, but also
personally, especially for women. And she
is of the confirmed view that to women, this
comes very naturally.
She advises that before enhancing
EI, one must look at few aspects: “It is
important for me to have empathy and be
approachable to my team. Relationship
building is limited not only to the
organization, but also being a home maker
and family member.”
Ritu also emphasizes that small things
like knowing about the team and having
conversations with the team members and
‘understanding the human more than the
professional’ are musts. Also, one must take
the key elements into consideration, which
helps in building equations with the team
members. She avers that social awareness is
very important at home and in office and in
the digital world and emphasizes building
the networks that have elements of empathy.
How does one improve social
awareness? She answers: “You need
to understand people and recognize
those emotional cues through body
language, voice modulation, behavior and
actions. You also need to understand the
power dynamics.”
She then goes on to explain the last
stepping-stone, which is relationship
management. One must learn how to
communicate effectively and how to clearly
convey your words. For this, you must
have clarity of thought and vision, you
must inspire others and you must manage
conflict. Conflict is inevitable.
She also gives the inward perspective:
“Being aware of yourself is very very
important. Being able to control your
emotions and impulsive feelings is
very important. Adapting to changing
circumstances, being agile and being
flexible and being aware of your own self is
very important.”
All this, she insists, improves
productivity and accelerates career growth.
PRACTICAL TIPS
Purvi Bhavsar believes that emotions and
intelligence, when put together in the right
Banking Frontiers March 2021 49
 Cover Story
harmony, can form an effective tool, not only
for one’s personal life but for professional
success too. She has 4 straight-forward
suggestions: “First, try and be very organized
to put less pressure on oneself for trivial
things. This reduces stress substantially to
enable focusing on macro management.
Second, move on from little things choking
your bandwidth emotionally. Third, connect
with people, places and interesting things
that you personally would love. This is a solid
key to remain happy. Fourth, keep yourself
updated - it could be something relevant to
your business or hobby or anything.”
She then moves on from practices to
perspective: “Love yourself the way you
are – you may not be perfect! But learn to
improve yourself and feel good about even
smallest of progress that you are making. It
helps you evolve as an individual.”
EI OR EC – A PERSPECTIVE
Sunita’s perspective is slightly different:
“For enhancing my EI, first of all I have to
be convinced that EI or a component of it
can actually be enhanced. My take on this
is that one’s EI is something one cannot
fundamentally change. However, we can
train ourselves to improve our levels of
emotional competence (EC),” she says.
She also believes that Emotional
Competence is a learned capability based on
EI, and she calls it a set of emotional and social
skills that collectively establish how well we:
u perceive and express ourselves,
u develop and maintain our social
relationships,
u cope with challenges, manage stress and
make decisions,
u use emotional information to effectively
guide our thinking and action.
After having defined emotional quotient
or emotional competence, does one have to
ask oneself how much importance should
one give it in professional life to determine
whether investing time, energy and effort is
worth it?
Sunita responds: “In my case, the echo of
my father’s words when I started my career
proved to be the guiding light. ‘While IQ is
important for entering into a profession,
it’s the EQ which will bring you the sense of
fulfilment and success going forward.’ So,
here I am, whether leading business teams or
50 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Sunita Handa emphasizes
emotional self-awareness
(recognizing how emotions affect
performance) and accurate self-
assessment (knowing one’s own
inner resources, abilities and limits)
the techies or the mixed ones, continuously
working on my emotional competence has
become a sort of habit.”
So, what competencies does Sunita
consider, monitor and work on for
improvement? She puts emotional self-
awareness at the top, that is, recognizing how
emotions affect performance. Accurate self-
assessment comes next, ie, knowing one’s
own inner resources, abilities and limits.
“I find self-assessment of myself
acquiring different value in different
situations. Keeping disruptive emotions
and impulses in check helps me develop
emotional self-control. I consistently remind
myself to continue to maintain a growth
mindset that readily adapts to changes,
strives for excellence and pursues goals
despite obstacles and setbacks,” she adds.
TEAM DYNAMICS
On social awareness side, Sunita puts empathy
at the top. She strongly believes in knowing
others’ feelings and perspectives and taking
an active interest in their concerns, which,
according to her is something a team leader
cannot lose sight of for a moment. Adding to
that, is reading the team’s emotional currents
and power relationships.
“Apart from making one’s own
observations, it is important to create
a mechanism to get honest feedback
for continuous learning and improvement,”
she emphasizes.
She advocates that a leader’s social
management skills like negotiating,
resolving conflicts and building
collaborative teams must improve with
each and every task and experience.
Sunita says in conclusion: “All my efforts
are aimed at enhancing my emotional
competence. I believe that the ability to
motivate, inspire, lead and unite a group
of intelligent, well-educated and often
quite strong-willed individuals into a high-
performing team depends on my ability to
recognize and regulate emotions in myself
and others as well. This complements rational
problem solving and cognitive skills.”
Literally, she has echoed the definition
of EI.
TIPS FOR LEADERS
Loveena share some tips, especially
for leaders:
u Stay assertive – People who are
Emotionally Intelligent know how to
communicate. I tend to do it in a direct
way while still respecting others.
u During conflicts stay calm and don’t
react. Listen actively to what the other
person has to say and don’t rush for
your turn. Instead of getting defensive
always try to take a few moments to
understand where the other person
is coming from and how are things
affecting them and try to understand
how to resolve issues together.
u It is important as a leader while you
floor walk or talk to individuals, to pay
attention to nonverbal details to gain
an awareness of the moods of your
team members. Emotionally intelligent
people have an awareness of the moods
of those around them.
u Walking with a smile on your face gives
that positive presence.
u Finally, being aware of one’s own
emotions and how they affect the
surrounding is very important.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Section 2.2
EI delivers a bouquet of benefits
In what ways has emotional intelligence contributed to one’s professional
success? 8 women leaders recount their achievements and link it to EI:
R
itu Nazir explains the benefits of
EI at 3 levels - personal, team and
organization. She says emotional
intelligence contributed not only to her
professional success, but personal as
well. “I am highly emotionally connected,
whether it is my family or my friends or
my social circle or in my office. A high
EQ always helps build relationships and
better inter-personal connects with the
team. I feel more like a friend to my team
members than a supervisor,” she says.
When it comes to the team level, she
says a strong emotional bond connects
her at the professional level, and she
also understands the human and
humanitarian aspects of the person. One
goes beyond just the transactional dealing
that one has on a day-to-day basis. This
reduces team stress, diffuses conflict
and most importantly, it helps improve
job satisfaction, she says, adding, unless
one feels emotionally connected with the
organization, whether it is the vision of
the organization or understanding the
supervisors or understanding the team,
one may not have the job satisfaction.
Ritu also emphasizes that at the
organization level, while EQ may seem as a
very intangible aspect of one’s profession,
it definitely helps in improving the overall
camaraderie which straight away helps
the organization achieve its goals.
When we talk understand about IQ
and EQ, there is a third quotient, says
Shikha Bagai, which is spiritual quotient,
avers Shikha Bagai. “I guess we have
some distance to cover before we get to
SQ,” she avers.
She maintains that businesses are
not always about driving IQs, because all
business problems cannot be solved with
just IQ. “The reason is that when we drive
business outcomes, we are really driving
group energies, group pursuits. And as
business leaders drive a group of people
Rishika Dasgupta believes
that accepting criticism and
responsibility, and being able
to move on after making a
mistake are important aspects
of EI
in pursuit of excellence in order to achieve
business outcomes, it is important for us
to be high on emotional quotient, because
you are dealing with multiple types of
people and then you are channelizing
them into a single goal,” says she.
EI helps us stay focused, she says, and
continues: “People falter because they can
find intellectual solutions but to really
implement them you need to harness the
energy of your team through EQ.”
She also adds that EI helps one to
understand how to implement mental
models best in the real-life situations
where people behave the way they
behave; and people do behave differently.
Rishika Dasgupta reveals that her key
to success is the capability to understand
herself and thereby understanding others
effectively. “Having handled various roles
which called for customer interactions
through diverse mediums (phone/email/
in person), I have realized at a very early
stage of my career that no two people
are same in any manner. What works for
customer A may not work for customer
B and hence the interaction needs to be
different as well,” she says.
According to her another very
important aspect of EI is to accept
criticism and responsibility and being
able to move on after making a mistake.
The more you brood the more negative
energy you emanate, she warns.
Sunita Handa shares the example
of her present assignment in which she
heads the teams that are responsible
for developing and implementing
various initiatives relating to mobility,
e-Commerce, ATMs, SWIFT, payment
systems, UPI, digital collections and
comprehensive digital solutions for
corporates and governments, treasury
operations as also the tech initiatives in
the bank’s offices in 25 countries across
the globe: “The role of Technology Leader
in a large organisation is much different
from what it was say, 5 years ago. Today,
she needs to contribute to corporate
strategy and manage a lot more change.
Apart from the technology know-how,
personal qualities like communicating
& influencing, partnering with others,
conflict-management, providing a calm
& empathetic leadership in exigencies
and problem-solving abilities are
important. A high EQ is essential for
working effectively and sustainably in
such an environment because it helps
you regulate your habits and behavioural
tendencies and consciously choose your
responses, especially under pressure.
It helps, for instance, to recognize how
much effort is appropriate to spend on
solving a particular problem, compared
to the many other problems that require
Banking Frontiers March 2021 51
 Cover Story
attention as well. Sometimes in a highly
complex situation, when you are likely
to get stuck stubbornly trying to perfect
something beyond a reasonable level of
sufficiency, it’s your trained inner voice
of self-awareness and self-assessment
of capabilities that taps you to say ‘Hey
Listen! Good is good enough here.’”
Purvi Bhavsar explains that when
one is happy and contented, one can
really look after others. “My work involves
working with a lot of people – particularly
with women in the bottom of pyramid
space and dealing with intensive/difficult
situations. So, emotional intelligence
really helps me to stay balanced and be
content in difficult situations,” says she.
She is never shy of asking for help as
she believes that one is at one’s strongest
when one dares to ask for help.
As she rose in seniority and she
managed larger teams, EI helped
Rajashree Nambiar build up a reputation
of a boss who listens and cares. “I have
been able to attract and retain talent. I
have seen people with high IQ but zero
Section 2.3
Making difficult decisions easier
Women leaders narrate incidents when emotional intelligence helped
them make difficult decisions:
Shikha Bagai: Emotional intelligence
helps one specifically when one faced
challenges/crisis like economic turnover
or industry upheaval. For example, at
the time of the Lehman crash of 2008
it was very tricky to manage multiple
stakeholders and situations that could
have really led to substantial losses. In
these times, it is emotional intelligence
that has helped me stay on course and
not give up, while taking the people
along. When we try to do things which
are inherently difficult, for example when
I was the CFO in Aditya Birla Health
Insurance, it was emotional intelligence
52 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Purvi Bhavsar works with a
lot of women at the bottom
of pyramid and deals with
difficult situations. EI really
helps her stay balanced and
be content
EQ. It is absolutely necessary for you
that has really helped me. These were
times like trying to accomplish multiple
objectives and trying to pull multiple
people in together.
Rishika Dasgupta: During my stint
with Citibank, EI set me apart from others
while I was managing the CEO escalation
management desk. I cannot really single
out any incident but can definitely say
that the customers I managed over the
years are the very reason for the position
that I am in today. There is a difference
between showing empathy and feeling
empathetic. You must actually feel it to
be able to demonstrate it in your actions/
to have the capabilities to manage for
pulling a business also. I develop EI
consciously,” she adds.
EI has definitely helped Loveena
Khatwani go a long way. “There have
been many instances wherein emotional
intelligence has got the better of me -
whether it’s during counselling sessions,
answering questions at various forums
or being part of various committees such
as POSH. Emotional intelligence has
helped me in expressing and controlling
emotions. More importantly, it has
helped me interpret and respond to the
emotions of others not as a reaction - but
in the right way.”
Rupa Balsekar says EI has helped her
to listen and put herself in the position
of the person she is interacting with and
understand the requirements better.
In summary, each woman here credits
EI as a critical factor in her professional
success, and has backed that with
meaningful background and explanation.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
behaviour.
Sunita Handa: Most recent example
is that of running State Bank of India’s
Global IT Centre (GITC) un-interruptedly
when suddenly faced with the outbreak
of covid and the nation-wide lockdown.
Even though I had enforcement capacity
at my disposal, true success of a leader
lies in getting most people to choose
to follow the leadership - which could,
under distinct circumstances, demand
sudden, unsettling, unprecedented
changes to their daily lives. My approach
has been a perfect mix of direction-
giving, meaning-making and empathy.
I think this came out of my self-trained
emotional competence.
In a second example, let me take you
back to 2002, during the horrific Gujarat
riots, when I was heading an SBI branch
on the outskirts of Vadodara city. A high
profile refinery, a govt. security agency
and a large oil conglomerate (all SBI
customers) located in the vicinity had
special vans to pick up and drop their
employees. So, after about a week or so,
when the disturbances slightly subsided,
some of these people started coming
to their offices by those vans. They
needed banking services (mostly cash
withdrawals and funds transfers). I and
some of my colleagues felt that if we drove
to office with caution, not going near a
shouting or unruly crowd on the way and
wore our office badges, there should not
be problem in reaching the branch and
opening it for a few hours every day.
I was pleasantly surprised to see
that 10 out of total 48 staff members
volunteered to come, and hence we
decided to open the branch daily unless
it was totally impossible. Although all
of us had our own vehicles, as a further
safety measure, I requested CISF that in
case we need any assistance in returning
home, they would escort our vehicles
or drop us home. There were very few
customers in the branch but whoever
came, thanked our staff profusely for
keeping the branch open in their hour of
need. When most branches and the lone
ATM in that area were non-functional,
functioning of our branch generated a
lot of goodwill. Making that possible not
only required courage and calm mind
but also the assessment of situation,
our capabilities and constraints etc, the
essential ingredients of EQ.
Purvi Bhavsar: I have a very
interesting example to quote. When I got
promoted as a Cluster Head from being
a Branch Manager, I had to move to a
different city. My son was just 5 years old
then and my husband’s practice then did
not permit him to move at a short notice.
It was a very difficult decision for me to
choose between family and my career. I
am very passionate about my work and
my career and took a call to move to
Loveena Khatwani sees EI
helping her connect with her
entire team constructively and
getting them to open up to a
huge extent
other city without family. I could manage
this only because of self-confidence and
ability to balance my roles as a mother
and as a manager.
Rajashree Nambiar: I took a big
risk by moving from a multinational
bank culture to an Indian promotor led
culture. When I shifted, I was a women
leader put up on a top of a company
where there haven’t been too many senior
managers and this culture was very alien
to what I have worked in for 22 years.
What I did first was to build a new
team and I looked into the existing talent
pool within that company. I travelled a
lot to meet and understand people and
create personal relationships with them
and to mitigate their concerns of a new
CEO coming in and changing things.
When the new people started coming
into the organization, I used my EI to
understand what sort of attitude and
behaviour these people have and what are
desirable. I spent a lot of time in merging
the two.
Usually when a new person comes
in, the whole system disrupts or blows
up. Since I spent a lot of time on the old
as well as new people and a lot of effort
in merging them both, the team stuck
together and became a strong leadership
team. This is a clear example of how I
used emotional intelligence. Or else, I
would have been an alien and rejected by
the whole system.
Rupa Balsekar: Firstly, BFSI has
undergone a sea change in the last 10
years. Further, we live in times when
change is coming at a faster pace, and
we are dealing with rapid social change
given our young demographic. It is
imperative that we listen actively, be
open to continual adaption, and manage
change better.
Loveena Khatwani: There was a time
when something had gone wrong at work
and I was struggling to evolve a solution.
Various charts and permutations /
combinations with checks and balances
did not seem to help. At that point of time
someone senior walked into my cabin
and told me: “I need to tell you something
that you can practise and he went on. It
took me a while to understand the advice
and say it is ok. This made me self-aware
that things do go wrong – but how you
deal with it is what matters. Firstly,
acceptance that things can go wrong
helps you deal with the situation much
better. Practice this regularly saying ‘it’s
ok’ and you will move on.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
No Changes Due To The
Lockdown, Thanks To Cloud
Manoj
Viswanathan
CEO,
Home First Finance
Summary: Home First
Finance manages its
operations unaffected
by the lockdown, thanks
to its adoption of cloud
and ensures the business scenario,
technology journey & geographical
expansion remain unaffected.
Banking Frontiers March 2021 53
 Cover Story
Section 2.4
EI: Like your shadow, always with you
You may believe that you can deploy your emotional intelligence
whenever you want, but that may not be the case. Women professionals
participating in the project share their experiences:
Rishika Dasgupta: EI has helped
me frequently to handle good as
well tough times. And let me tell you
being emotionally intelligent can be
detrimental too sometimes. I have often
been construed as someone who tries to
avoid confrontations and hence being
nice to people. I have also felt taken for
granted as people perceive me as someone
‘who will understand and be okay’ with it.
Shikha Bagai: As Indian women
play both traditional and modern roles,
they have to find a balance between
professional pursuits and taking care of
their family responsibilities. In a world
where we are fighting for equality, I have
always stood up for traditional roles
for women as much as I have stood for
modern roles. For me, it has always been
a pleasure to keep a family together and
raise a daughter all rounded and be there
for family. When you try to balance both,
EI comes in handy.
Also, you should balance your
expressions and keep up with things
like your hobbies. To optimize your
expression and enhance it, you need
emotional intelligence all the time.
Loveena Khatwani: EI helps me
continuously, as practicing it itself makes
my people connect with me in a better
manner. I have a team of 178
people all over the country.
And EI has helped me
connect with my entire
team to a great extent.
For the team also, a
leader who understands
flaws and deals with
them constructively
makes them open up to a
huge extent.
Sunita Handa: I see EQ playing
a crucial role in health and well-being of
a person. Despite the pulls and pressures
54 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Ritu Nazir explains some
differences between men and
women. She feels that women
are far more empathetic and
men are better at managing
stress
of Global IT Centre assignment, if I am
able to maintain the normal BP and sugar
levels, the credit should then go either to
my genes or my EQ. When I make EI my
second nature, physical and emotional
health is the first gain. Becoming
more emotionally conscious
allows me to grow and gain
a deeper understanding of
who I am.
Emotional
intelligence also helps me
identify and manage my
own emotions and react
to the emotions of others.
It helps me communicate
better, defuse conflicts, improve
relationships, empathize with others,
and effectively handle life’s situations.
It is interesting to understand how
those emotions shape your thoughts and
actions so you can have greater control
over your behavior and develop the skills
to manage yourself more effectively.
Purvi Bhavsar: EI obviously increases
steadily as we gain more experience. It is
something that one learns or acquires
over a period time. Unlike knowledge,
EQ gets acquired subconsciously. In the
early years, I did not even realize that I
was acquiring EQ as a skill. Early on for
me, it was more of a survival. Later, I
realized how powerful it was! So, having
acquired it, it helps me continually, not
just occasionally.”
Ritu Nazir: EI is part of one’s
identity. It is not something that one
can switch on and off. It is an integral
part of life that is practiced day in and
day out. Whether it is traffic or house
help or rains, every hour is a test on your
emotional intelligence. How you deal
with a situation is something that your
emotional intelligence decides. It plays a
role throughout life, and not just during
happy times or sad times.
Being an ambitious woman and
at the same time being a mother and
getting the guilt pangs, a woman has to
be emotionally very strong to make the
right choices at every turn, for which you
need emotional intelligence.
Rajashree Nambiar: EI is a part of
my DNA. It’s how I behave every day -
when I get up in the morning and get to
work and back. It is not something that
you pick and choose and pull out only
when you need it. It’s either with you or
it’s not with you. I think it’s there with
you all the while. Clearly, EI is a deeply
ingrained part of you that is inseparable
from you. Perhaps, EI is what you are!
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Section 2.5
Men from Mars, Women from Venus - Maybe Not!
The common perception is that differences between the minds of
men and women are substantial. Our experts find the differences to
be lesser:
Sunita Handa: It may be risky to
generalize on the basis of gender. Even
though we are equal in our overall EQ,
men and women are said to possess
different EQ strengths or competencies
that are considered gender-specific. In
general, women tend to score higher than
men in areas of empathy, interpersonal
relationships and social responsibility
and men higher than women in areas
of assertiveness, stress tolerance and
self-regard.
It’s important to remember that not
all men and women fall into these stated
gender-specific EQ patterns. People are
strong in all different EQ traits, with
many having raised the level of their
overall emotional intelligence with just
a little bit of focus and effort. Unlike
personality or IQ, EQ for men and
women can improve with age.
Psychologist Ruth Malloy at the
HayGroup Boston studies excellence in
leaders. She finds that when you only
look at the stars - leaders in the top
10% of business performance - gender
differences in emotional intelligence
abilities are a wash out: the men are as
good as the women and the women as
good as the men, across the board.
Ritu Nazir: If you ask any woman,
the first answer will be that there is a big
difference and that there is no comparison.
Most women will crib that their husbands
do not understand so many things. If you
ask me personally, I feel that gender does
not define emotional intelligence and
men are also emotionally intelligent. The
only difference is awareness.
If there is a situation which has gone
bad, men will react to it in a different
manner compared to women. Women
may come back to it again and again
and spoil their day thinking about it.
Men may sulk about it for half an hour,
but then they will do something which
Shikha Bagai believes that
more than gender, what
matters is how you grow up,
what kind of experiences you
go through and what you
pursue
gets them back on track and divert their
energy somewhere else. Both men and
women have a different way of dealing
with a situation. So, I personally feel
that it is not that women are better, but
I do feel that there are certain aspects
where women are better and there are
certain aspects where men are better.
For example, when it comes to empathy,
women will be far more empathetic. But
when it comes to managing stress, I think
men will be better. Bottomline, I would
not say that men are less emotionally
intelligent than women.
Loveena Khatwani: Well, it is
perceived that women are emotionally
intelligent than men since they come
with more emotions. But statistically
both men and women have been shown
to be equally emotionally intelligent. But
what could differ might be the ability
to use these skills in specific areas. For
example, women tend to fare better than
men when it comes to empathizing and
men tend to be better in other areas like
being assertive and practical in evolving
solutions. Hence, it is quite difficult to
put a score card and state one gender is
better off than the other.
Rajashree Nambiar: I have been
saying that women are naturally
endowed but I cannot say that for sure.
I have seen a lot of men display very
strong emotional intelligence. As they
say you are quite a bit influenced by your
first boss. My first boss was a male. And
earlier on in my career I saw him display
very strong emotional intelligence. In
my own experience, there is not a lot of
difference between the two.
Purvi Bhavsar: Certainly - at least in
my context - I feel women can sympathize
and empathize very effortlessly at times
and that gives her an edge at times.
Shikha Bagai: Characterizing based
on gender is not fair. It is more a function
of how you grow up and what kind of
experiences you go through, what are the
choices you make and what is it that you
are pursuing. It is more about specific
experiences.
Rupa Balsekar: I would not like to
generalize emotional intelligence. It is
rather a series of life experiences and
journey which contribute to the EI of
a person.
Rishika Dasgupta: I don’t think it
is gender dependent. We as women tend
to express it more than men. Haven’t we
all heard ‘the crying baby gets the milk’.?
As women, we get more attention and
that is why it is perhaps a perceived
thought that women are more
emotionally intelligent.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 55
 Cover Story
Section 3.1
Risks & Rewards: 13 Bold Stories
Not many women reach the top corporate echelons. Sneha Agrawal
spoke to 13 women leaders, who reveal the varied risks they took, the
rewards they earned and the valuable lessons they learnt:
Namrata Sehgal shares 3 risks she has
taken in her career. The first risk that she
had taken was transitioning from a science
background to law. “I almost boarded
the train to Bangalore to pursue BSc in
Biotechnology, but something held me
back and I opted to stay at home and pursue
law. I think it paid off well in the long run,”
she says.
The second risk she took was that
after completing her post-graduation
in Constitutional Law, instead of going
down the beaten paths of legal practice
or working in a law firm, she joined an
NGO focused on female foeticide and child
rights. “I knew it would not do me any
favors like climbing the corporate ladder or
pay me the big bucks, but it was something
that really called out to me at that time and
that’s another risk I feel I took at that stage,”
recalls Namrata.
Her third risk was taking a break in
2018 to pursue MBA at IIM Bangalore. “I
was married, and I was working. I took a
1-year break from family and work. Since, I
had completed my post-graduation in 2012,
it had been 6 years after which I turned
back to books,” she recounts.
LESSONS LEARNT
Namrata shares 3 lessons that she learnt
from taking risks in her professional life. Her
first lesson was self-realization. While she
had always thought of herself as a cautious
person, she found out that she was actually
quite adventurous. “I overthink maybe. But
at the core of it, I do take risks and I am an
adventurous person,” she confides.
Namrata’s second lesson was stepping
out of her comfort zone and making
things happen. “You can’t just get up in
the morning, think the same thoughts,
take the same actions, and expect different
outcomes,” she explains.
Her third lesson was that everybody has
big dreams, either professional or personal,
56 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Noopur Chaturvedi was often
the only woman in a team
which helped her in overcome
biases and develop working
relationships with very diverse
people
but they tend to put a lot of conditions on
those dreams. “I will pursue XYZ when
I reach this age, or I will do ABC once I
have attained this degree. But these are
simply perspectives at the end of the day,”
she declares, stating further that such
conditions become huge inhibitors for them,
forcing them to drop the propositions. “We
should have clarity and belief in what we
want to achieve, and go for it,” she advises.
In her entire career across banking,
Jasmin Ignatius has handled many
portfolios like operations, risk and
compliance, cross assets research,
communications and even procurement.
At times, she was asked to streamline
and at other times to remediate or clean
up processes and systems. “I do not see
obstacles as difficulties but as opportunities.
For example, a hill with boulders may
seem insurmountable but when the same
rocks are used to find footholds, the entire
perspective changes,” she explains.
Failing fast to recover fast and learning
new skills to build her portfolio is how she
has approached her career journey and it
has reaped rich dividends.
Lincy Therattil shares 2 risks she has
taken in her career. At the very start of her
career, she decided to work with a startup
instead of a large corporate. “At a very early
age, within just 3 to 4 months of joining
the organization, I was already helping
to set up new teams, setting up processes
and protocols, hiring team members,
mentoring and training others. I think
this experience gave myself and my future
bosses the confidence that I can be relied
upon to handle things beyond my grade
and designation.”
Later on, after almost a decade of a very
comfortable and rewarding career, Lincy
decided to charter into a completely new
territory. From a research and advisory role
for a professional services firm she switched
to be an innovation enabler and fintech
influencer for a leading global bank. “While
my previous roles were all about structure
and preparing and knowing things in
advance, to the minutest of details, my new
role was all about constant changes, ability
to take quick decisions on the go, interacting
with multiple and diverse stakeholders, and
forming new strategic relationships with
external ecosystem. Most importantly, it
wasn’t just about interacting with large
corporates, but with the ever-changing
dynamic startup community. Saying that
this transition has been very rewarding
and biggest learning experience would be
an understatement,” she exclaims.
LESSONS LEARNT
Lincy shares 2 lessons she learnt. The
first one was that what makes risk taking
possible and potentially a habit, is the
efforts that one puts to influence the
outcome. Risk taking is a process, not just
a decision. She recommends: “Reach out,
speak with people, gather support and find
sponsors. Sitting in a cocoon and expecting
the universe to conspire for your success is
a fool’s game.”
Her experiences have taught her that
taking risks is worth it. “However, one
needs to be on one’s A-game to take risks.
For example, in the middle of my career,
when I wanted to shake myself out of the
equilibrium and forge a new career path,
I decided to first go back to school – did
a campus based Advanced Management
Program from IIM Bangalore to be able
to interact with and learn from senior
executives from other industries. This
helped me to make a smooth transition to
a new field,” she explains her second lesson.
Noopur C hatur vedi s h a r e s 3
unconventional steps she has taken after
her graduation. She chose to work with
Infosys even though she had got admissions
from non-premier MBA colleges. “At that
time, family and friends thought of it as
vanity that I wanted to study at the top 5,
or not at all,” she reveals.
Stepping out from Citibank to ING
Vysya Bank was another decision with
high stakes. The role (which included
managing many products instead of just
one), the city, the culture (from a foreign to
a private sector bank), the size of the bank
- everything changed dramatically.
“I think the biggest risk I took was when,
after working for 12 years in the banking
sector, I chose to join an organization
outside the BFSI space (Samsung). A few
mentors and consultants actually urged me
to reconsider, since re-entering the banking
sector could have been difficult,” she shares.
“Once you reach a leadership position, you
need to take risks more regularly, including
decisions around, investments, businesses,
people and changes.”
Noopur is a firm believer of the adage
‘no risk, no returns!’ The chances she took
fortunately worked out for her and made
her more confident as an individual. The
same ethos reflects in her work at PayU
India as well. “For me, every day presents a
different type of risk,” she avers.
Vandana Trivedi took the risk
of a step-down to her role
and leant to make a short-term
compromise for a long - term
gain
LESSONS LEARNT
Noopur shares the 2 lessons she has learnt.
Joining and leaving her first job for a
premier college boosted her confidence
tremendously. From working across various
types of organizations and industries,
she learnt how to adapt quickly to a new
organization and its culture. “Often, being
the only woman in a team also helped
me in overcoming biases and developing
working relationships with very diverse set
of people,” she says.
When she took a chance on changing
the industry, she got clarity on what she
really wanted to do. “I understood that
wasting years of experience is not judicious,
and yet, it’s important to get an exposure
of how things are done in very unfamiliar
set-ups. I learnt about new sales structures,
got to see cutting edge tech and leveraged
the opportunity to strengthen industry
connections,” she explains.
Pratima Thomas talks about 2 risks
she had taken. “I have served in the armed
forces and that was the first risk I took in
my life. That was more of a personal risk
rather than a professional risk that I took
at the age of 20. It was very rare for a
Mumbai girl to go into the armed forces.”
The second big risk she took was quitting
the armed forces and coming out after
spending 10 years in the army. She took a
year’s sabbatical to balance her personal life
along with her professional life, and then
started her corporate life.
LESSONS LEARNT
Pratima shares 3 lessons. The first lesson is
that it is never too late to start something
or to jump into something. If you feel that
you need to do something, then don’t wait.
Her second lesson is that it is always a good
time to start something, be it a career, a new
habit or something else. It is not difficult to
start something, it is difficult to hold on to
what you have started. Her third lesson is to
take one step at a time.
Sumanlatha Sanghi shares 3 risks she
has taken in professional life. She moved
from a successful hospital administration
and dietician career to banking, when she
had no idea about this field and was not
sure of the whether she would succeed. “But
I had confidence that I would be able to put
my mind and effort to learning new things
and this will give me a different perspective
and it was very crucial to move out of my
comfort zone,” she explains.
Secondly, within her career, she has
moved across various product streams
laterally and vertically that helped her
become more knowledgeable and an expert.
She also moved between operational and
techno functional roles as well as offshore
and onshore roles. This broadened her
perspective and improved her experiences.
Her third shift is geographical: “I
took the decision to move across various
locations - Hyderabad, Jaipur, Dubai,
Bangalore, Manila and Vietnam. I had the
confidence that I would be able to manage
both personal and my career. This was also
supported by my family that encouraged me
to become mobile.”
LESSONS LEARNT
Sumanlatha reveals 5 benefits she has
derived from her risk taking: (i) improved
self-confidence (ii) gained in-depth
knowledge of various functions (iii)
overcame fear of failure as one learns from
every move one makes (iv) became more
creative and learnt many new skills (v)
Banking Frontiers March 2021 57
 Cover Story
several unforeseen opportunities that came
her way.
Vandana Trivedi shares details of 2
risks she had taken: “The first risk was to
decline an opportunity to move abroad
when I was working with a globally reputed
MNC. I took a bet on continuing in India,
and at that point in time, without the
benefit of hindsight, it did seem like I was
risking a big career move.”
Her second risk was deciding to move
to her current organization for a role which
was a step-down to the one she was doing
in her earlier firm. “In my assessment, I
thought that my current firm would grow
faster, and it therefore made sense to make
a short-term compromise for a long- term
gain,” she explains.
LESSONS LEARNT
She shares 2 lessons she has learnt: “Any
decision that seems to be a risk at the time
of taking should be backed by informed
decision making. A diligent approach to
ascertaining the current situation and
connecting the dots to estimate what the
future would look like minimizes negative
consequences from those decisions.”
The other lesson that she has learnt is
that once a decision is taken, one has to
back the decision with dedicated and high
conviction efforts.
For Mabel Chacko, starting an
entrepreneurial career was itself a big risk
as she came from a family of government
servants and both her parents are bankers.
“For me starting out is leaving my comfort
zone and have done it 5 times over right
now. Each time I transitioned from my
comfort zone to the risk-taking zone.”
She started in 2006 in Ahmedabad and
was trying to build a biometric payment
startup to enable cash withdrawals at local
kirana stores. While doing some research, she
came to know about another startup that was
doing something similar in Kerala and she
connected with the founder Anish Achutan.
He was using another technology to enable
contactless payments on mobile phones and
using it for branchless banking. “The biggest
risk would be joining him as a co-founder at
that point of time and moving to Bangalore,
because I did not have more than Rs 5000 in
hand and I had never met Anish in person.
58 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Jaya Janardanan feels
she has always been very
innovative and that innovation
has also helped her take risks
That was a very big risk, but I took it because
there was an ecosystem in Bangalore and we
both had a network we could reach out to and
there were investors,” she reveals.
She says that the risk that paid off very
well because in Anish, Mabel not only found
her best co-founder with whom she did
another 4 startups, but her life partner too.
LESSONS LEARNT
Mabel shares 2 lessons from her journey
of doing 5 fintech startups. First, build
things that people want. She says it is very
important as an entrepreneur to know for
whom one is building one’s products or
services, who one’s true customer is and
once one realizes that, spend time to listen
to one’s customers and see what they are
talking about and how they are interacting
with the product. If one does that, then one
does not have to worry very much about
product market fit.
The second is fail fast. When building a
product, Mabel and Anish wanted to build
everything perfect going out. “So what we
did is we often landed up spending 1-2
years behind building the whole gamut of
things and trying to put the most perfect
product out. But what happens is if that is
not something that the user wanted you end
up spending 2 years of your life and a lot of
money and efforts just chasing something
that was really not meant to be. I would
suggest all the entrepreneurs to always
first put out the very basic framework of
the intended product in the market and
see how the users interact with it. And see
how that adoption goes if it works go ahead
build the rest of it and then you have a great
use case in front of you. If it doesn’t, then
you would have saved yourself a lot of time
and efforts in trying to build something that
people didn’t want,” she says.
In her career journey, Ruchi Bubber has
actually switched 3 big different industries.
From media, she went on to do a very long
stint in FMCG and then entered financial
services. She explains: “These are very
different industries so that itself was a very
big risk because obviously when you shift
your career to another industry, you got can’t
carry all your subject matter expertise, and
you have to prove yourself from scratch.”
“But it occurred pretty well for me
because it made me more holistic as a
career professional. I have knowledge about
diverse industries now which means I can
cross-pollinate ideas to succeed in different
companies,” she adds.
Another level of risk Ruchi has taken is
switching roles. While she is an analytics
professional, she took the risk of switching
roles and getting into a business stint where
she was accountable for business KPIs like
increasing market share.
“That was very good because it gave me
a new perspective of how analytics can be
used to drive businesses,” she says.
Sometimes setting up things from
the scratch itself is a risk. In her previous
company she did take up the responsibility
of setting up a center of excellence from
scratch. It was a very big responsibility.
Guidance that Ruchi shares for younger
women is this: “Don’t hesitate to take
calculated risks where the data will be
helpful for you.”
LESSONS LEARNT
One must do a thorough assessment. That
assessment has to be data-based. Which
means that look at data from an external
perspective. For example, is it the right
environment to move? Is the economy
in the right shape to take the risk? Is
the regulation or the competitive
environment conducive enough for you to
take that decision?
She says some of the risks should not
compromise on one’s core value. She refers
to stages in life such as having kids, taking
care of ageing family members, etc, when it
comes to moving to a new city. “Always have
a Plan B, which means if you take a risk and
God forbid it does not go well, you should
be financially secure enough to fall back on
your Plan B.”
Ruchi also feels that women need
to have multiple sources of income. She
thinks financial literacy is very important
for women.
She also recommends consulting a
mentor before taking a risk. “Tap into your
network, get into you network of friends
and family, get their perspectives and then
take the risk,” she recommends.
Jaya Janardanan started her career with
Mashreq Bank, then went to ICICI Bank
for a longer stint and then worked with
banks like Dhanlaxmi, JP Morgan, Bank of
America and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank.
She built her expertise in banking operations,
technology, digital and customer service.
Her career is full of risks. Earlier she took the
risks unknowingly; now she takes the risks
knowingly. “I will share my 2 biggest risks.
I joined ICICI in the corporate banking
group where I was comfortable managing
credit appraisals. The organization decided
to go retail in a big way, requiring skills and
capabilities, which I joined voluntarily. I
started with the dematerialization of shares,
which was my journey into the unknown.
Many people told me I am making a mistake
in my career by going into the unknown. If
I had not done those projects, I would not
be here today.”
The second risk Jaya took is taking
on a project on Six Sigma in ICICI Bank.
“No one in the banking industry had done
Six Sigma and here I was asked to lead
the project. Everyone who heard about
it ridiculed me saying this is surely the
end of my career as no one ever does Six
Sigma in banking operations. Not only was
the project successful, it was replicated
in all parts of the bank, and then other
banks followed suit soon. Leading the Six
Jasmin Ignatius approached
her career journey with
learning to fail fast and recover
fast, along with learning new
skills to build her portfolio
Sigma project has shaped the way banking
processes have changed and built higher
customer experience,” she says.
LESSONS LEARNT
Jaya says she has learnt 2 big lessons: “First,
you have to take such risks consciously.
Second, you have to learn the pluses and
minuses on your own, and you cannot
blame anybody else. Your confidence is
very important. You cannot let someone
else push you into taking the risk; you have
to do it yourself. If you are not confident,
don’t even venture into it,” she clarifies.
Rajashree Nambiar says she has taken
several risks in her 29 years career. When
her kid was just 3 years old, she moved
from Mumbai to Delhi because she wanted
to experience a new geography and a new
business. “I have made location changes 3
times – each time it was beneficial from the
work point of view but was tricky from the
personal and family perspective,” she reveals.
She worked for 22 years in a
multinational bank in a very structured
environment. “One day I quit that to
join an Indian promotor-led company
where the culture was very free flowing
and entrepreneurial and fast growing.
My profile changed from one of many to
a leader and CEO. That was a big risk. I
would say I survived and even thrived,” she
shares, adding: “I have always stuck to jobs
that are front line and business lead, which
is a risk because your output is tangible and
there for everyone to see.”
LESSONS LEARNT
“When I look back and check where I grew the
most, professionally and for learning, it was
when I was in my discomfort zone. I advise
youngsters to seek out those discomfort zones
where you are being pushed and stretched.
When you are in your comfort zone, after a
time you regret with every passing day, you
are not advancing,” she shares.
For Purvi Bhavsar, her first risk was
to move from a well-established career in
banking where she had created enough
equity for herself and being a fast-track
performer for most part of her career to
telecom, a completely unknown sector
with no background. The second biggest
risk she took, which she defines as a leap
of faith, was when she decided to be an
entrepreneur after being recognized as a
leading woman in telecom.
LESSONS LEARNT
“Learning has been a never-ending process
for me. The lessons I have learnt are: dream
and have courage to pursue them. Secondly,
fear is more inside your mind or inside you,
than outside,” Purvi explains.
Sunita Rath hails from a conservative
family in Odisha. She was pressurized
to marry after her father’s death, but she
chose to work as the only woman officer in a
35,000 strong work-force in India’s largest
open-cast coal mine in faraway interior
MP. This brought personal transformation
and gained her tremendous confidence to
confront variety of obstacles in life.
Her lesson is that setbacks do happen but
fabulous returns await you when you bounce
back. “So never give up! Also, when you
choose to opt out of your comfort zone, you
learn and achieve much more,” she advises.
Her second risk was a simultaneous
triple change – job-type, industry and city
– when she shifted to Mumbai. Everything
seemed to be different, difficult and fast
paced. As a result, not only did she become
Banking Frontiers March 2021 59
 Cover Story
well-networked with the IT industry in
Mumbai, but she also moved ahead in her
career at a much faster pace. Her lesson is
that while change brings in anxiety as well
as risk of failure, calculated risk opens up a
plethora of opportunities, otherwise beyond
one’s reach. Since, change is a constant in
life, it ought to be embraced than resisted.
Her third risk came around 7 years into
her career. “I was called upon to streamline
a crisis-ridden operation overseas. In my
mind, I was not up for it. It was a completely
new context in a new country with new
people. Worst part was, I had to travel in a
Section 3.2
Risk vs the Fear Factor
The brave ladies tell us how they became fearless in the face of fear
associated with taking risks. This section is loaded with gems of wisdom:
Vandana Trivedi: The fears that come
with taking any risk can be alleviated by
a continuous process of skilling ourselves
to match up to the job in hand. Besides
this, a close monitoring of the situation
as it evolves is an important ingredient in
ensuring that the fears are taken care of.
Sunita Rath: My approach is to
always get into action. Once I do that,
I start uncovering things and as you
uncover things, the picture becomes
clearer, and the mind overcomes
fear. So, rather than brooding over a
situation for long, I quickly jump into
action targeting quick-wins. I never
shy away of taking help from anyone
for insights or execution. Also, reaching
out to your network helps; so I just
go on pushing my circle of influence
further and further, making it wider.
I seek help from personal as well as
professional friends, colleagues and
anyone else available and willing. Many
a times, ‘reverse mentoring’ has helped
me – much junior/ younger people have
given me ideas that have enabled me to
overcome fear and succeed.
Purvi Bhavsar: There is no defined
formula. You try and see whatever works
60 Banking Frontiers March 2021
plane for the first time, that to for 36 hours
changing 3 flights to reach the destination,”
she shares her story. But her husband
encouraged her and she executed the task
with aplomb. As a result, she got to hone
her trouble-shooting skills and learnt to be
comfortable with uncertainties and to take
decisions with limited available information
than waiting for all desired inputs. She
shares her lesson: “When you are given a
difficult job, no one expects miracles. The
right intent and action-orientation gets you
cooperation of even the aggrieved people.
Focus on Progress not on perfection.
Lincy Therattil does a lot
of research about her plans
and listens to different
perspectives from friends,
mentors, peers and even
critics to take well-informed
decisions
– every time you have to keep inventing
something new. Right from remembering
‘Adopt and adapt’ is key to be at ease with
uncertainties in career and life. One always
emerges stronger out of the challenges.”
These are the stories of the 13 ladies who
started going outside their comfort zones into
unknown territories at early stages of their
lives, and continue to do so. Their stories
are varied, but what is noteworthy is the
inspiration they individually and jointly bring
forth. More women taking such approaches
will surely enhance their participation in the
upper corporate echelons.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
God, to speak to some people in your
inner circle who can calm you down and
give much needed confidence helps me
overcome the fear or nervousness.
Namrata Sehgal: I believe in being
prepared. I know that I am not very risk-
averse. I will think a lot before I really try
something new and I tend to tread on the
side of caution. That’s the reality of who
I am as an individual. I will evaluate the
situation, I will check out what’s the worst
case scenario essentially and then I will
prepare for it. I would usually counter what
potentially could go wrong while feeling
more confident and preparing more.
Sumanlatha Sanghi: It’s always
difficult to take risks and the fear of the
unknown always made me hesitant. But
some pointers to control the fear include:
a. Having self confidence
b. Having a conversation with someone
you trust and believe in
c. Logically decide if it’s the right decision
with clear plan for success.
Rajashree Nambiar: Every time you
take a risk, you are always worried and
anxious about what if something goes
wrong and how will you manage it. One
of the simple tricks is to look back and
I look at my past success and I visualize
it and I try to visualise scenarios if
similar thing had happened in the past
then how would I have navigated it and
got through it. Visualizing past
successes gives me confidence to
navigate future challenges.
Mabel Chacko: Entrepreneurs by
nature are risk takers and pretty fearless
because we put everything to start up
something. We put all our bets on the
table in the process of starting up our
business. One key method I suggest is to
not overthink. You always need to weigh
your pros and cons. Do that once or twice,
but don’t keep dwelling on is endlessly.
Always understand that there would be
situations that would be adverse. Not
everything will work as per your plan so
just keep believing that this too shall pass.
Keep moving ahead don’t quit and don’t
settle in any situation. Keep hustling.
Pratima Thomas: I believe that fear
is there to stay. Everybody has some sort
of fear when it comes to a given situation
or time or purpose. I believe that fear is
a positive factor as it comes from being
mindful of the consequences that may
come up. It is not something bad per
se. From that perspective, fear is always
positive, because when you are fearful,
you start planning and strategizing your
Plan B. Fear will give you sleepless night,
but in those sleepless nights, you start
thinking about the alternatives. Fear
is more developmental rather than an
obstacle. That is how I take fear to be.
Sometimes fear may depress you, but you
can learn from it and move on. That is
how I have always dealt with fears. Even
now I have fears.
Noopur Chaturvedi: We all get the
butterflies with every change, don’t we!
Higher the stakes, more is the stress
around the outcome. For me, talking to
friends, family and mentors helps. They
can give you an outside-in perspective
of what you’re doing. They can bolster
your view, or share aspects you haven’t
thought about. In addition, it also helps
to open a document and write down your
thoughts – your fears, expectations, plan
B, future state, etc. For me, writing things
down dissipates a lot of anxiety and fear,
Ruchi Bubber shifted across
industries which helped her
acquire knowledge for cross-
pollinating ideas to succeed in
different companies
and also helps me ascertain why I’m
taking this risk at all.
At the end of the day, if you are more
excited or passionate about the risk
than fearful about the result, the risk is
completely worth taking.
Lincy Therattil: The best way to
control the fear is by mentally preparing
yourself to deal with the outcomes. While
you prepare for the worst, make it a point
to envision the best possible outcome and
how you and your loved ones will feel
about it. This is where working on your
‘inner game’ becomes important. Tell
yourself you are equipped to deal with
the outcomes, reminding oneself of the
safeguards you have put in place and the
support system available in case anything
goes wrong.
Even after this, in case the worst-case
scenario unfolds, tell yourself: it’s ok to
fail – nothing is permanent – this too shall
pass! It’s ok to sulk for some time too.
But it’s important not to give up. Else, it
will become a natural deterrent to taking
any risks in the future. Authoritatively
nudge yourself into action. Start thinking
about how to salvage the situation in case
your decision has backfired or in case
of a missed opportunity, start thinking
WHAT NEXT?
Jaya Janardanan: When you take a
risk, you are fully conscious of what you
are getting into. It’s about taking the first
step. Once you take the first step, you are
bold enough to take the second step. Fear
comes when you actually are thinking
about multiple things around you about
which you are not confident. For me the
calculation was this - either the initiative
will fail and I would have to go back to
what I was doing earlier. If it succeeds, it
would be seen as something that is created
very innovatively. I have, I have always
been very innovative and that innovation
has also helped me take risks.
Fear comes when you are not
confident of yourself. Confidence is very
critical to take risks. If you are bothered
about what people around you say, then
that gives rise to fear. You have to do it for
yourself to be fearless. Risk is about being
confident and also having the courage.
Ruchi Bubber:
u You should understand the picture
of what you are going to achieve by
taking that risk. This also includes
determining the likelihood of success.
u Build a solid skillset in such a way
that your fear of failure will not be
there. If you have the right skills, your
likelihood of not succeeding is lower.
u Continue learning. In fact, I am
pursuing 2 different streams of
learning right now. I am doing an
executive MBA after 20 years of
working. Also, I am doing courses
to learn artificial intelligence
and machine learning because that’s
the future.
u Plan your finances, invest in such
a way that even if you start a new
venture and get into entrepreneurship
you have Plan B to fall back on.
Jasmin Ignatius: We usually
fear the unknown but when adequate
understanding and adaptations exist
to respond to a wide variety of possible
scenarios, there is no room for fear. As a
skydiver, I was trained to anticipate and
prepare for several contingencies.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 61
 Cover Story
Section 3.3
Risk Taking is not Gambling
Our experts draw a clear line between risk taking and gambling, leaving
no scope for confusion:
Pratima Thomas: Risk-taking and
gabling are two different things. Risk-
taking comes when the will is stronger
than the skill and the situation around.
Gambling is when you are not very
mindful of certain consequences or
results that your risk-taking is bringing
in. If the consequences are helpful and
beneficial to us, then it is worth the risk
and I go ahead. However, if I feel that the
results are too adverse and could affect
someone else’s life, then I draw a line and
probably alter my risk-taking.
Jasmin Ignatius: Gambling is very
different from business risk-taking.
The former is a game with two possible
outcomes and there’s an element of
wishful thinking. Risk-taking, on the
other hand, is a calibrated process aimed
at obtaining better results through a
different approach.
Ruchi Bubber: G a m b l i n g i s
something where the outcome is
unknown. I don’t know whether I am
going to succeed or not. It’s completely
uncertain. In risk-taking, you have
an outcome anticipated, which is
based on assessment, data, what is the
achievement that you want to get, etc.
In risk-taking, you should consider the
potential consequences of your choice.
In gambling, it is not there. Either you
fail or you win. It is as simple as guessing.
Draw the line where you think you
do not have enough data points or you
cannot predict the outcome even if it
is 50% right, then that’s gambling. But
if you have some data, methods you
have considered options to achieve that
particular goal then it is risk.
Vandana Trivedi: In a work
environment any risk-taking that involves
one’s own career has to be evaluated in
light of one’s personal circumstances and
career goals. Any risk-taking that involves
the firm’s investments in terms of time
62 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Namrata Sehgal sees women
factoring in many parameters
when taking major decisions,
whereas men have a wider
social safety net per se
or other resources should go through a
detailed and transparent evaluation of
the decision. All the stakeholders should
be involved in the decision, and should
be convinced about the extent of risk
that the decision may involve. Any risk
that involves or may potentially involve
reputational damage to the firm or could
be in violation of the letter or spirit of
the regulatory environment should NOT
be taken.
Sunita Rath: When you can assess
the level of risk and increase / influence
the probability of success with the help of
your knowledge / skills, it is considered
a calculated risk. Here, you are also able
to anticipate the consequences and hold
the capacity to face the consequences and
can work towards minimizing its impact
on yourself / family / organization /
society. Gambling is a matter of chance
independent of any knowledge / skill.
You can prepare for reducing the risk
of a choice by better information /
knowledge / skill and whereas gambling
is completely beyond one’s influence.
So, risk taking can’t be equated to
gambling and these are widely different
from each other.
Purvi Bhavsar: I feel women in
general are quite balanced in their
approach and would always be more
practical when it comes to taking risk. I
am no different in this theory !! Gambling
is out of question but well-informed
decision with some gut feeling (basis
some knowledge) is something that you
would aim for as a professional.
Namrata Sehgal: Gambling means
essentially leaving everything to chance,
ie you don’t have any control whatsoever
over the results. So, you don’t want to be
in a situation where you can’t do anything
to turn the tide in your favour. With risk-
taking, you walk into the situation with
eyes open. You know well before what the
consequences of your actions might be,
and you are capable or prepared enough
to bear those consequences. That’s the
primary difference between gambling
and risk taking.
Sumanlatha Sanghi: I think risk-
taking is a logical decision based on
certain details. It is not irrational and is
well thought of. The fear of failure is there
but then you also create back up plans to
overcome failures.
Rajashree Nambiar: However risky
the situation might be, whatever decision
I take I always think to myself whether I
have a Plan B. I take risks when I know
I have Plan B, so that in the worst-case
scenario, I should know what is the way
out. I would say I have taken more risks
in my latter career then my initial career.
One advice that I give younger people is
always get independent of your payslip
quickly. Once you do that, you can start
taking risks and that is actually when you
start doing the work that your mind and
heart tells you, not because you are told
to do something.
Mabel Chacko: There is a very big
difference in risk taking and gambling
because when you are taking a risk you
have done some bit of calculations, you
know what the consequences are, you
know how the things are going to turn
out to be. You also would have factored
one or two other ways this thing could
work out and you would have a plan
B in your vicinity. On the other hand,
gambling is only guess-work as there is
no supporting data available. It’s just
playing with luck.
Noopur Chaturvedi: In t h e
professional or career journey context,
there are 5 aspects linked to a change.
One is geography, the others are
industry, company and the role that you
may be changing. Finally, there may be
associated changes in family or support
set-up. If you are changing all variables
at the same time, it’s headed towards
gambling (though I must say that people
can succeed even with that!). My advice
is to try and change only 2 or 3 variables
Section 3.4
Risk Taking: Men have an edge, Women closing the gap
Our experts share the differences between how men and women take
risks keeping in mind parameters like ambition, society, emotions,
obligations, etc:
Lincy Therattil: I wouldn’t say women
are risk averse, but they are usually
constrained by the potential impact that
their decisions could have on the lives
of their near and dear ones. Women
balance so many things that they
usually prefer the status quo. Anything
that is likely to disturb the equilibrium
Pratima Thomas believes that
fear is a positive factor as it
comes from being mindful of
potential consequences. It is
not something bad per se
at a time while stabilizing the others. Else
the stress can be overwhelming. Hence go
for ‘controlled risk’ as against ‘everything
uncertain’.
Another area where women seem to
in their life is usually frowned upon.
Much like any financial analyst who
does a thorough cost-benefit analysis
before recommending any action,
women too have so many criteria and
considerations for a decision that often
takes into account the incremental
returns. Whereas for men, their primary
be confusing risk vs. gambling is when
they take an entrepreneurship plunge.
Again, look at the variables above and
then take an informed call.
Lincy Therattil: One should not
shy away from taking risks. But at the
same time, it should be a well-calibrated
one. I usually do a lot of research
about the action/activity that I plan
to undertake. Also, the importance of
listening to different perspectives cannot
be overemphasised here. Take inputs
from your friends, mentors, your peers,
and sometimes even from your critics.
When decisions are vetted by so many
internal and external filters, it’s no longer
gambling, but well-informed decisions
that are likely to go right.
Jaya Janardanan: Till date I have
never played card games in my life…..
so I don’t know what gambling is all
about. We all gamble with the objective
of winning. In an organization, you
take a conscious step to do something
different. Risk is taking steps to explore
the unknown. In a financial services
organization, operational risk is an
unknown risk.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
criterion for risk taking is usually the
expected reward and they rarely have to
deal with dilemmas and considerations
that tend to weigh down women’s risk-
taking ability.
Jaya Janardanan: In corporate life,
both men and women take risks, but they
take it differently. When a man takes a
Banking Frontiers March 2021 63
 Cover Story
risk, compliments come up such as – see
his vision, he knows what he wants in
life, he is very ambitious, etc. However,
when a woman takes a risk, questions
are asked such as – does she know what
she is getting into, is she making the right
choice, can she manage it in a men’s world,
etc. People expect woman to have a very
stable job, and to not be very courageous
and confident. So, the adjectives used
for risk taking men and women are very
different. We have a very low diversity in
the corporate world, so the ratio of women
to men is also very low. So, the ability to
accept women as peers is a little difficult.
That itself is a risk that a woman takes in
the corporate world.
Here at IndoStar, one of my
responsibilities was to set up a call center.
When I shared the thought process and
idea of building my call center with back
to work women to my CEO, his response
was ‘great idea, we should do it.’ He was
very supportive of this concept. All my
peers also stood by it and said ‘yes we
should do it.’ But with all of it, it was a risk
we all took. No one has ever attempted
something of this kind earlier. But it’s
the trust of my CEO, my colleagues and
of the women who wanted to return to
work and make a career that has helped
to make it a strong call centre. A risk that
was taken but well delivered.
Jasmin Ignatius: I do not believe that
any one gender has necessarily more risk
aversion than the other; but I do believe
that unless women are in a state of 100%
readiness to face a risk, they do not take
a plunge whereas men are likely to take
actions even earlier.
Ruchi Bubber: Earlier, there were
differences in risk-taking. Now, I think
women are almost equal in terms of risk
in the current environment in the last
10-15 years. Just look at the number of
women entrepreneurs that have come
up. Take covid for example. So many
socio-commerce entrepreneurs and
small-scale businesses have started by
women. That’s a very good indicator of
their risk appetite. I have also seen in
my career that women leaders do have
a lot of courage and ability to stand up
so I would like to say women now in the
64 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Mabel Chacko shares a saying
that men take risks when they
are under stress and women
don’t take risk when they are
under stress
current scenario are almost at par in
terms of risk taken as compared to men.
It wasn’t that 30 years ago. But it is now.
Vandana Trivedi: I do not think so.
In my opinion, risk taking finds its roots
in the awareness, ambition and drive
that professionals bring to the table
rather than in their gender differences.
Sunita Rath: I have taken many
risks, but a nudge and a push were
required. Research suggests that women
are generally more averse than men to
taking risk. When an opportunity comes,
a man will take it even if he is only 70%
prepared. Whereas a woman, even if she
is 90% prepared, will think over and over
again. There is the fear of failure and
fear of unknown that prevents them to
take the plunge Also, women are always
trying to prove themselves to others and
to themselves.
Risk-taking is interpreted differently
by men and women. Men are more
comfortable with bigger risks and with
financial risks. Women are slightly
less comfortable with financial and
relationship risks, managing conflicts,
etc. owing to the social/ family
obligations. Often, they compromise
on their ambitions for family reasons.
However, times are changing with
the new generation energetically and
actively pursuing their career goals and
undertaking necessary risks as well.
Purvi Bhavsar: I don’t want to
generalize it but as I already said earlier,
women are generally more balanced.
And at times, this goes against her in
terms of taking even the calculated risk
or not taking any risk at all! I have seen
this more often during my professional
career when some of them would choose
to be safe at the cost of not growing in
their career.
Namrata Sehgal: Women do factor
in a lot of parameters when they take
major decisions. I have a lot of social
dependencies and have to take care of
a lot of those obligations. Men do have
a wider social safety net per se, but I
think at the end of the day, it is a very
individual choice that you make when
you are taking those decisions.
I think what really matters is who
you are as an individual, where you are
in your life at the moment, what is your
situation in terms of your career path,
what stage are you in your life. All these
things will have a major impact on the
decisions you take on the risk-taking
ability that you have.
Sumanlatha Sanghi: While risk
taking is lower in women, things are
changing these days. There are lots
of opportunities available to men and
women and each one has a choice of what
they want to do. There are many tools and
support mechanisms that help women
and men take risk. Personal situations
also impact the decision around taking
risks – it’s the same for both men and
women. Nowadays a lot of women are
the sole breadwinners for the family even
in the organized corporate sector and
there is nothing wrong in that. Men are
willing to play softer roles and let women
take the lead. There is a greater focus in
corporates on empowering women to
take risks and right decisions. It’s up to
the women to take the right path. Many
sessions on coaching, mentoring, senior
leadership support, career development
plans are now making it easier for

Sunita Rath learnt the
lesson that while change
brings in anxiety and risk of
failure, calculated risk opens
opportunities, otherwise
beyond one’s reach
women to take that leap. This was not the
case about 10 years ago and was tough to
make decisions.
Rajashree Nambiar: Having worked
with men and women in my career, I
wouldn’t say that women take lesser
risks than men. I would surely say that
women actually take more emotional
decisions in most things than men. It
could be because I find that when women
come to the workplace they seem to be
less encumbered. Men seem to think
that they are more responsible, they are
more encumbered. So, men do not take
hasty emotional decisions, women tend
to take, and that’s my experience.
Mabel Chacko: It is said that men
take risks when they are under stress
and women don’t take risk when they
are under stress. I personally don’t feel
that it has got something to do with
gender. It’s just about taking calculated
risks at different points of time and being
accountable for whatever decisions you
have taken.
Pratima Thomas: I feel women are
conservative when it comes to risk-taking.
But believe me, I have met many women
hustlers who have taken significant risks
in their personal as well as professional
life - some have succeeded and some
have failed. Because of the role we are
perceived to play in various societies
across the world, the entire risk-taking
attitude stems in from that perspective.
Except when it comes to protecting their
young ones, there a woman/mother could
take all the risks possible. Women often
take a side-step giving preference to their
better half or family. So, there is a stark
different in the approach of men and
women. Though, I have met many men
who are conservative about risk taking.
In profession too, women tend not to
speak out loudly, as compared to men,
ie, not taking that risk as they may feel
inadequate. But for men, even the silliest
of thoughts come out very easily. Women
think more about what they will be
perceived like as compared to men. Some
of us are very lucky to be in a conducive
environment where we can come out with
whatever we have to say, but there are
some for whom this itself is a major risk.
Noopur Chaturvedi: Yes, of course.
From time immemorial, men have been
‘stepping out’ of their comfort zone,
either to hunt or farm or even battle.
Women have stayed closer home, in
more nurturing roles. This historical
perspective has somehow led to levels of
risk taking and confidence being higher
in men than in women.
As practical examples, I’ve seen
a lot of women entrepreneurs start
their business from their own funds,
expanding slowly and judiciously, while
men-founded startups rely more on
funding from the beginning. In other
situations, I’ve seen men negotiate for a
pay hike or that promotion much more
aggressively than women. And even if
you look at their financial or investment
portfolios, it will be starkly different,
more risk averse for women.
If you ask me whether this low-risk
appetite is right or wrong, there is no
clear answer. One should reflect on own
risk-taking appetite (as well as their
phase in life), and try to push herself
a little out of the comfort zone. If you
keep taking risks in some areas, you will
Sumanlatha Sanghi has
moved across various product
streams laterally and vertically
helping her become more
knowledgeable and an expert,
and thus broadening her
perspective
soon have the confidence to take firmer,
bolder chances in all areas of life.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com,
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
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Banking Frontiers March 2021 65
 Cover Story

32 Must-read books for Young Women

Through video and email interviews with Sneha Agrawal, 21 women
leaders from the BFSI sector have recommended 32 specific books that
they have read, that have enhanced their personal and professional lives,
and that they recommend for younger women to read:

M
any years ago, British author Ian
McEwan did a very elementary
study of the reading habits of
men and women. He and his son went to
a London park and started distributing
free books, including some 30 novels and
surprisingly almost all the takers were
women. In the words of McEwan, they
were ‘eager and grateful’ for the freebies.
And adding to his surprise was the attitude
of men who stopped by to have a look at
what is happening. They were ‘frowned in
suspicion, or distaste’, says McEwan, who
later wrote in The Guardian: “When women
stop reading, the novel will be dead.”
While this is a rudimentary finding,
there are scientific studies that have
established that women read more books
than men, especially fiction. Biological
differences between the male and female
brains and the way that boys and girls are
introduced to reading at a young age are
quoted as reasons for this.
A study by news agency AP some time
ago found that a typical woman read 9
books in a year, compared with just 5 by
men. It also found that women read more
than men in all categories except history
and biography.
Cognitive studies too have found that
women are more empathetic than men, and
possess a greater emotional range - traits
that make fiction more appealing to them.
Girls for example, can sit still for much
longer periods of time than boys.
While such a ‘gender inequality’ exists
or not, women professionals in India do
not at least lag behind men in reading.
Among interviews with women leaders in
the BFSI sector for International Women’s
Day, several books were recommended
which are featured here. These professional
women read books by authors as varying as
Swami Vivekananda to Jawaharlal Nehru
to Charlotte Bronte to Pearl S. Buck to
Dr Varghese Kurien to Satya Nadella to
Michelle Obama.
Lincy Therattil says any book or
training program that teaches one to master
the ‘inner game’ is highly recommended.
“Constantly talk to yourself - after all,

66 Banking Frontiers March 2021

you know yourself the best! I would also
recommend Satya Nadella’s Hit Refresh. It
is very important to make changes in one’s
lives, take bold steps, learn new things,
and constantly upskill yourself. Else, the
monotonous, cushy life will ultimately get
to you,” says she.
She also recommends Malcom
Gladwell’s Blink as he talks about how
one can train their minds to be conscious
of instincts, behaviors and patterns to aid
quick decision-making. “I try to follow this
principle through the art of observation,”
she says.
She also believes that while reading
books are important, one can learn the
most by reading viewpoints and keeping
tab on what experts in specific fields have
to say like what is the most trending topic
and what are the diverse views on that
topic. It is also important to know what
experts have to say about a new offering or
technology and their views on skills that
will be important to be future ready.
“Similarly, observe others – what new
skills are others learning, what career
moves are people making,” she adds.
Rupa Balsekar says there are 2 books
that she holds in high esteem about women
empowerment. Says she: “The book
Becoming by Michelle Obama about her
personal experiences, finding her voice,
being a mother; being a powerful advocate
on women leadership and fulfilling her
ambitions is a good read. Similarly, The
White Revolution – The Story of Amul by
Dr Verghese Kurien talks about bringing
opportunities to marginal farmers
especially women in rural India and leading
to women empowerment.”
For Ashima Bhat too Becoming is a
must read by all women. “She talks about
her struggle through life,” says Ashima,
adding Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, Indira
Nooyi’s articles about women’s struggles in
their careers too are good reads, “though
they are not role models”.
Jasmin Ignatius recommends 2 books
to young women - The Black Swan by
Nassim Taleb and Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman. “Both books help to
widen perspectives and evolve thinking,”
she says.
Shikha Bagai has a different approach.
She says she does not believe too much on
external opinion and external influence
on matters of internal growth. “For me
meditation is a first-hand experience. If I
rely on somebody else’s experiences then it
is always second hand. But if somebody is
looking for guidance on direction then there
are people like Daniel Goleman, Sadhguru
and Swami Vivekanand,” she avers.
Pratima Thomas considers the Bible
as her spiritual source and she gets a lot
of day-to-day learnings from the Bible.
“For every woman, whichever religion you
follow, every religious script has so much
content which is much beyond what has
been generally interpreted. Every young
woman should go back to the roots where
she has started off. Every religious book is
full of rich content,” she advocates.
The second book which has always
motivated Pratima to find newer horizons
to take risk is Jonathan Livingstone Segull
by Richard Bach. “I find this book to be
very inspiring. It is a very simple read and
a very small book, but the kind of push and
motivation that it gives you will take you
beyond the horizon to take that risk and
that journey. You can read it multiple times
and still find something new in it,” says she.
For Loveena Khatwani, Daniel
Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence is a great
read. “It talks about self-awareness and self-
engagement and social awareness all leading
to better relationship management. It also
details a lot of real-life examples helping
one to understand how to deal with different
situations in the right manner,” she says.
Babitha B.P. feels that reading
anything under the Sun is good, because
the knowledge we gain from reading will
never go waste. “There will be definitely
some occasions in our life where we can
use it,” she says.
Among other women leaders, L.
Chiranthi Cooray has found The Good
Earth by Pearl S. Buck, Roots by Alex Haley,
Mother by Maxim Gorky, Dona Louisa
Sadanige Kathawen Kotasaki by Bhadraji
Mahinda Jayatilaka and Letters from
a Father to his Daughter by Jawaharlal
Nehru quite fascinating.
Rishika Dasgupta recommends No
One Belongs Here More Than You by
Miranda July, Lady, You’re the Boss by
Apurva Purohit and She Walks She Leads
by Gunjan Jain as good reads.
Lalitha Bhatia vouches for The Secret
by Rhonda Byrne, Lean In by Sheryl
Sandberg and books by Steven Covey.
Shoma Narayanan is a voracious reader
and her favorites are The Handmaid’s
Tale by Margaret Atwood, Jane Eyre by
Charlotte Bronte, Atomic Habits by James
Clear, Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and Nir
Eyal’s Indistractable.
Namrata Sehgal has read 30 Women
In Power by Naina Lal Kidwai and
recommends it to every young women.
For Mabel Chacko the favorites are
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by
Joseph Murphy and Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean
In. Nilufer Mullanfiroze too recommends
Lean In by Sherly Sandberg.
Mauli Bodiwala is captivated by Family
Wisdom by Robin Sharma and Corporate
Chanakya by Radhakrishnan Pillai.
Monu Jain suggests Sapiens by Yuval
Noah Harari as a must read. “It is one book
that has had immense impact on my life. It’s
a very thought-provoking book. It makes
you think and it has a unique perspective,”
she avers.
For Nitu Samra Not Perfect by Reshma
Saujani and Work Smarter Not Harder by
Jack Collins are must reads.
Vandana Trivedi recommends Against
the Gods - The Remarkable Story of Risk by
Peter Bernstein.
Ruchi Bubber recommends Marc
Benioff ’s Trail Blazer as one book every
woman manager should read.
Rajashree Nambiar prefers books on
history, travel and biographies.
For Sumanlatha Sanghi, more than
books, there is a lot of information available
on the net - whether its Harvard Business
Reviews or LinkedIn, the articles help a lot
in terms of knowing what happening in
the bigger world and various analysis and
reviews being done.
Among these 32 books, Lean In by
Sherly Sandberg got the maximum number
of recommendations (5), followed by
Michelle Obama’s Becoming (2).
Many thanks to all the women for
coming forward to encourage and empower
the younger generation.
sneha@glocalinfomart.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 67
 Research Notes – Women Borrowers

Data Points by CRIF

1. Percentage share of male and female borrowers across Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu.
various loan categories (as of Dec 2020) For housing loan, top 5 states with largest portfolio outstanding
Snapshot as of Personal Auto Home for male borrowers are the same as that for female borrowers.
Dec 2020 Loan Loan Loan
Size of Market `59.5 tn `4.58 tn `20.6 tn
3. Average Ticket Size Loans across various loan categories
(Dec 2019 vs Dec 2020)
Female 16% 16% 29%
Personal Loan (Lakh) Auto Loan (Lakh) Housing Loan (Lakh)
Male 84% 84% 71%
Dec 2019 Dec 2020 Dec 2019 Dec 2020 Dec 2019 Dec 2020
Observations: Indian women are availing more credit
Female 1.68 1.59 4.79 4.90 16.38 16.69
in the form of home loans as compared to personal and
auto loans. The share of Indian women availing PL and AL Male 1.79 1.61 4.46 4.55 14.45 14.71
compared to men has increased by 1% over the last one year. Observations: The average ticket size of personal loans
borrowed by men and women has reduced by 10% and 5%
2. Active loan to women borrowers over the last 1 year respectively over the past 1 year. The average size of loan
Active loans (in Personal Loan Auto Loan Home Loan borrowed by women continues to be smaller than that borrowed
thousands) by men. The average auto loan size borrowed by women is 8%
Size of Market `59.5 tn `4.58 tn `20.6 tn
higher than that borrowed by men. Average ticket size of both
has seen an increase of 2% over the previous year. Size of home
As of Dec 2020 6482 1818 4354
loans borrowed by women is 13% higher than those borrowed
As of Dec 2019 5279 1902 4159 by men, both having seen a growth of 2% over the last year.
Observations: Active personal loans to women borrowers
have spiked by 23% Y-o-Y as of Dec 2020, while that for home 4. Distribution of Loans to Women Borrowers by age group in
loans have increased yoy by 5%. Active auto loans to women the last 3 years
borrowers have reduced by 4% over the previous year, as of
Dec 2020 Female
CY 2018 CY 2019 CY 2020
Borrowers
6. States with the most amount of Female Portfolio Outstanding Age % Total Loans % Total Loans % Total Loans
(as of Dec 2020) Disbursed Disbursed Disbursed
Portfolio Portfolio Portfolio Portfolio Portfolio Portfolio <=21 1.33% 1.26% 0.49%
Personal Auto Housing
o/s Dec o/s Dec O/s Dec o/s Dec o/s Dec o/s Dec
Loans Loans Loans 22-25 5.78% 10.55% 10.47%
2019 2020 2019 2020 2019 2020
26-35 35.51% 41.10% 40.49%
TN 10,908 12,993 Mah 7681 7308 Mah 1,31,591 137,845
36-50 38.85% 34.86% 34.75%
Mah 10,259 11,602 Kar 7076 6906 Kar 60,731 65,012
51-60 12.54% 8.74% 9.49%
Kar 7691 8869 TN 6927 6407 TN 61,215 65,005
>60 5.99% 3.48% 4.32%
Tel 6008 7173 Tel 6113 6140 Guj 43,470 46,531
AP 5332 6893 UP 5333 5277 Tel 40,464 43,754 Observations: Maximum loans are given to women in
the age group 26-35 having a share of 40% in the overall
Top 5
40,198 47,530 33,130 32,038 3,37,471 3,58,147 disbursements in the year 2020. The share of loans availed by
States
women borrowers in the age group 36-50 stands at 35%. The
Observations: Women borrowers from southern states share of loans availed by younger women borrowers has become
have higher credit book size as compared to western and 2X to 10% in a span of 2 years.
northern states. The share of top 5 states in the personal loan
portfolio outstanding for women has increased by 18% over 5. New to Credit Borrowers
the previous year, while that for auto loans has reduced by
3% and increased by 6% for home loans as of Dec 2020. The Retail Borrower Base Dec 2018 Dec 2019 Dec 2020
book size of home loans availed by women in Karnataka has Total Active Borrowers 212.5 mn 245.4 mn 269.3 mn
surpassed that of Tamil Nadu in a span of 1 year. The top 5 states Overall NTC 13% 12% 9%
with largest personal loans portfolio outstanding for male Female Borrowers 48.6 mn 56.3 mn 62.6 mn
borrowers are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Uttar
Female NTC 16% 15% 12%
Pradesh and Telangana as of Dec 2020. For auto loans, top 5
Male NTC 12% 11% 9%
states with largest portfolio outstanding for male borrowers are

68 Banking Frontiers March 2021

 Unravelling the Mystery
Figuring out Women
I nternational Women’s Day is coming up
on 8 March and we decided to step outside
the box. It is frequently said that for a man
it is impossible to understand a woman.
Sometimes this is said in jest, and sometimes
in full seriousness. Well, the pandemic-cum-
lockdown offered an extended opportunity
for men to figure out women. So, we asked
lots of men but got only a few responses.
Our questions to the men:
1. Have you learnt something new about
women during the covid lockdown? If
yes, describe briefly?
2. How useful do you find this new
knowledge to be?
3. Have you put it to use? If yes, please
explain briefly. Those who responded:
Viral Thakker
1. As always, women can come on top when
it comes to adapting to new situations (or
shall we use new normal) - I could see my
wife quickly converting our home to be
a mechanised one to keep the household
running without maids. That learning is
closer home as we haven’t been stepping
Citrix study shows hybrid work is here to stay
A study by Citrix Systems shows hybrid
work is here to stay and in this new
world of work, delivering a unified, secure,
and simplified work experience will be key
to success.
In the study, mainly to understand the
impact the pandemic will have on the future
of work, Citrix had teamed with OnePoll to
survey 7250 employees in 12 countries and
assess how their attitudes and expectations
on work have changed since the crisis
began. The study has highlighted 3 things:
There’s No Going Back
While many companies viewed remote
work as a short-term solution to the
pandemic, they now recognize it must be
part of their permanent workforce and cost
management strategies.
When asked how they would prefer to
work post-pandemic 52% of respondents
said they want a hybrid model where they
out that much. The second instance is
about our earlier maid who used to do
say 5-6 houses in a day. She adapted to be
a 24-hour maid at one of our friends - a
mutual win-win for them. The maid could
keep getting her salary (rather improved
on her take-home, this was after first
3-4 months of lockdown as people had
gradually stopped paying) and our friends
who were in dire need of a maid.
3. No, not used that. Your question made
me think and will see if this is to be put to
use. But yes, one thing I have done using
this knowledge - thank my better half for
helping to continue to run the house.
Ulhas Nambiar
1. The pandemic has brought out the
need for empathy in all aspects of
life. More so, in leadership, be it in
corporate life or political life. I have
experienced the empathy in these
times coming from my CEO to all
employees, clients and community
first hand. And likewise, countries like
New Zealand where Jecinda Ardern is
can choose to work remotely or from the
office each day; 16% indicated they have
no interest in returning to the office and
would prefer a permanently remote role;
45% noted that if they were to change jobs,
they would only accept a role which offered
flexible and remote work options; and
nearly 75% said they would likely consider
relocating to a different city if they could
perform their role to the same level without
commuting to a place of work.
Work is too Noisy
With a lack of boundaries between their
work and personal lives and no commute to
manage, two-thirds of employees polled say
they are working the same or more hours.
And while they remain productive, many
are struggling to do so. The study found
that 41% of employees cited distractions in
their home environment, 28% say they lack
appropriate technologies and applications
PM, showed great resilience against the
pandemic while ensuring life went on
with minimal disruption. Women rose
up to the occasion at homes as well,
accommodating the breaking down of
the separation of home and office, while
continuing to play the chief family
care giver role with panache - the best
example being my own significant other.
2. I have known the power of empathy and
felt self to be empathetic in my leadership
style. However, the year gone by has
taught me that I do it in a limited manner
and I need to more often put myself in the
other person’s shoes. I hope to practice
the same more often and become better
this year.
3. Empathy starts with listening to
the other person without offering
judgement. I have started practicing
the same with my teams and also on
my client meetings. This has helped me
bond better with team members and
connect deeper with clients leading to
more business opportunities.
manoj@bankingfrontiers.com
to get work done and 36% feel isolated and
out of touch with colleagues.
Experience Matters
As many companies have learned through
the pandemic, digital workspaces are an
efficient and effective way to do this, as
they:
Unify work – whether at home, on plane
or in an office, employees have consistent
and reliable access to all the resources they
need to be productive across any work
channel, device or location; secure work -
contextual access and app security, ensure
applications and information remain
secure - no matter where work happens and
simplify work – Intelligence capabilities
like machine learning, virtual assistants
and simplified workflows personalize,
guide, and automate the work experience
so employees can work free from noise and
perform at their best.
Banking Frontiers March 2021 69
 Expert Opinion
Crypto Wars: The Looming Chinese Cyber Threat
Is China unleashing global unrest using social resistance and financial
terrorism through decentralized autonomous organizations funded by
hijacking crypto-assets:
C
hina wields a very significant threat
through its capability to control
damage the entire Bitcoin network,
and thus starting to destabilize the global
economy. It is commonly known that over
70% of the total network hash rate (mining
of Bitcoins) originates in China. This
essentially qualifies a few facts, which in
turn fuel the fear of Chinese capabilities in
crypto-weaponized attacks of many kinds.
India, its government, its agencies and war
apparatus are totally unprepared for this
war, if it were to happen tomorrow - the
threat is very real, but the preparation has
yet to start.
One, China has complete autocratic
control of everything that happens in their
territory, including Bitcoin mining pools.
If they assume brute state control over it,
they wrest rights over potentially globally
damaging crypto infrastructure and crypto
assets (literally) that may be abused to their
ulterior ends in anonymous funding of
whatever, wherever, whoever and whenever
they wish to fund. To the un-initiated, such
control will put them in charge of hundreds
of billions of dollars in cryptocurrency while
ripping off millions of people (agnostic of
nation or nationality) who actually own
these assets.
Example: Look at how some big crypto
scams have taken place in India, where the
first piece of crypto forensics (Blockchain
analysis) has yet to be found by Indian
LEAs (law enforcement agencies). For
lack of knowledge, they save their skin by
tagging these as cyber-crimes or financial
crimes. But without the right kind of
forensics in these cases, agencies will never
find the money trail (essential transactional
evidence) and money laundering will keep
happening because of anonymity of the
mode and value of such money vanishing
into thin air.
Two, Chinese are known and suspected
to snoop over whatever device they can,
and then meddle with it in ways that
further their global ambitions. Given this
70 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Md Shahabuddin believes that
governments who start late
will find it increasingly difficult
to deal with the menace
as technology anonymity
becomes even more powerful
fact, most experts and technology czars
naively advocating that highly encrypted
cryptocurrency like Bitcoin/ Ether cannot
be hacked easily, miss the mark by more
than the proverbial mile. Given that they
penetrate cyber assets from the word go,
and that the largest part of mining happens
in China, who is to say that they do not
snoop over devices that login to transact in
crypto. Which brings us to the point that
they merely have to slide a key-logger onto
the device which is logged in to Chinese
servers. This debunks and demolishes the
entire theory of how decrypting crypto is
impossible, by not even attempting to do so.
Three, China is engaging in a new
kind of warfare which is unconventional
and against which the world has almost
no defense. We have seen in 2019-2020
that the entire world suspects China of
unleashing the Covid-19 globally. What
if their next war on the world is through
controlling the entire Bitcoin network and
funding social unrest and terror across the
world’s leading nations.
Example: Some experts in Indian
LEAs believe that the funding of social
movements and unrest in recent times
has a large amount of unconventional
funding methods attached to it, given
their magnitude and sustained length of
time. Cryptocurrency, especially Bitcoins
and a few dark coins, are the primary
suspect of very large amounts in funding
such events.
Four, 51% Attacks Model.
Cryptocurrency is built on Blockchain which
is hard-coded by a democratic algorithm. In
simple words, whoever has control over 51%
or more of the block, shall be able to make
changes and control a lot of what happens
over it. When an autocratic regime like
China has such control over the majority
of assets physically in their boundaries,
anything is possible. The way they work,
if it is done, it will be done overnight with
brute force and the consequences will be
devastating. This is highly improbable, but
cannot (must not) be ruled out.
Example: There exists no example of
the exact nature but the world believes that
China is capable of enacting maneuvers
of this kind with easy and without guilt,
followed by misdirection & misinformation
campaigns to wash their hands of it.
The question is: Why are most nations
either blissfully unaware and hence entirely
unprepared for crypto wars? Why India is
being caught crypto-napping while billion
of dollars scams, money laundering, capital
flight and misuse of cryptocurrency in
illegal activity happens all around us?
Five reasons for this
1 governments have no jurisdiction
over cryptocurrency, not any kind of
control, nor any capability of tracking
transactions and hence cannot stop or
freeze such transactions happening freely,
anonymously and uncontrollably.
2 theoretically anyone can store
any infinite amount of money in
cryptocurrency anonymously. Today cold
wallets allow the bearer of such currency
to carry any amount in their quarter-
pocket. Thus, no need for carrying cash or
physically traveling to haven banks who
hold your money with no questions asked.
Thus, very large amounts can be converted
to black money and capital flight takes
place. It is happening as we speak.
organizations, which have been known
to accept Bitcoins by merely putting out
a wallet address via social media posts
Md Shahabuddin is Principal
Advisor to BEGIN India Think Tank.
and disappearing thereafter. Even so
Evangelist of India Cryptocurrency
called online social activist organizations
Initiative which helps government
like WikiLeaks have in the past accepted by advising on policy building and
Bitcoins as a mode of funding. compliance, and training financial
5 knowledge-proofs’ protocol are now
being created where transactions
can be confirmed without revealing the
institutions & law enforcement in
creating capability & capacity in
cryptocurrency tracking, forensics
address of the sender or recipient on the and analysis. He has more than 2

3 Since the entire sum of money

is secured by a highly encrypted
mechanism, and a password merely in the
mind of the accused/ arrested, it becomes
very difficult for governments to confiscate
cryptocurrency.
blockchain. Governments who start late
will find it increasingly difficult to deal
with the menace as technology anonymity
becomes even more powerful.
The solution lies only in preparing an
early defense system so that the weeds
decades of experience in building
Indian IT/ BPO industry at leadership
position in NASSCOM, advising on
Indian ITC Policy, as ITC advisor to
government of Egypt & ICT Subject
Matter Expert at World Bank.

4 it is the fastest, most convenient,

completely anonymous way of terror
or unrest funding for banned terror
are destroyed before they take strong root
and suck the nourishment that ensures
normalcy for the citizens of our country. shahab@beginindia.in

N E W S

Women advised about exercise & healthy diet

S araswat Bank organized a webinar for all its women

customers and staff to mark the International Women’s day,
educating them about the importance of exercise and a healthy
diet which is often neglected by them.
The bank took upon the task to raise awareness about fitness
among women who are always on their toes, trying hard to strike
a balance between their personal and professional lives. Smita
Sandhane, Mananging Director of the bank, addressed the
participants and highlighted how she, as a woman, balanced
her personal life, health and work and on how women tend to
neglect the most important aspect in their life, that is, health.
She also said women form the backbone of their families and
torchbearers at work or in their profession and health and fitness
need to be a priority for them life in addition to her priorities
of home and work.
The webinar was conducted by celebrity fitness trainer and
author Yasmin Karachiwala. It also featured adopting easy
exercises and useful health tips, especially ones that women
can easily follow in their otherwise hectic and tied-up schedule.
Yasmin, with minimal time at hand, demonstrated how one can
achieve the required mental and physical fitness, which was the
major focal point of the webinar.
The 100-year-old bank, which was recently awarded the wellbeing of society.
2nd best bank in the country by the Forbes 2020 World’s Best It believes in the mantra of ‘Alone we can do so little; together
Banks Survey, is always on the forefront in contributing to the we can do so much’.

Banking Frontiers March 2021 71

 Research Notes - Digital Financial Inclusion
Taking up the case of women
A recent study by Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) argues
for digital financial inclusion of women across the world to help them
gain financial independence:
W
hile more than 240 million
more women now have
accounts with financial
institutions or mobile money services,
compared to 2014, there remains much
work to do to achieve gender equality in
financial services, finds a recent study
by Global Partnership for Financial
Inclusion (GPFI), an inclusive platform
for G20 countries. Its noted that
approximately 1 billion women do not
have access to formal financial services
due to persistent barriers in access to
identification documents, mobile phones,
digital skills, financial capability, as well
as inappropriate products and more.
And these challenges are compounded
by laws and norms that can undermine
a woman’s right to participate in the
labor force, control assets, establish and
access funding to grow formal businesses
and, ultimately, make her own economic
decisions.
It s ay s : “ Wo m e n’s e c o n o m i c
participation is still unequal in both
advanced and emerging economies and
they are found to be disproportionately
affected by the covid crisis. Thus,
prioritization for women should be
reflected in policy and programmatic
responses, including efforts to support
women’s financial resilience as they are
impacted by and recover from covid and
the associated economic challenges.”
SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS
Depending on the country context,
c u l t u ra l e nv i r o n m e n t , ava i l a b l e
infrastructure and resources, the study
has suggested a range of solutions to
remove barriers to digital financial
inclusion of women. And these solutions
address the 3 main categories of barriers
to accessing financial services for women
and girls - lack of access to the basic
requirements for financial inclusion,
limited digital financial infrastructure
72 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Percentage of Mena Countries where Women lack the same legal status
as men on Economic Indicators
Apply for a passport
Travel abroad
Travel outside the home
Choose where to live
Get a job
Head a household
Equal rights to inherit assets from their parents
Equal rights to inherit assets for surviving spouse
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%
2010
Source: World Bank Women, Business, and the Law (WBL), various years.
and unequal laws and regulations.
The report has suggested various
policy options to provide guidance for
national, regional and global stakeholders
that can help close the gender gap in
financial inclusion, empower women and
strengthen economies.
ACCESS TO DFS
Policy options for strengthening access to
digital financial services (DFS) are:
(i) Supporting making official identity
systems and documents universally
accessible to all women and girls.
Globally, it has been found that 1 in 5
unbanked women say a lack of ID is
one of the reasons they do not have an
account. Countries should work toward
removing barriers to women’s access to
official ID and eliminate policies that
impose extraneous conditions on adult
women using ID to access financial
services, such as requirements to
provide identity documentation for a
related male (husband or guardian)
as well as their own. Digital ID that is
both technically reliable and subject to
appropriate and effective governance,
privacy, civil rights and inclusiveness
2015 2020
safeguards is a critical driver for
obtaining DFS and can prove easier for
women to use as well.
(ii) Facilitating women’s universal
ownership of mobile phones as
financial services increasingly depend
on access to technology, such as
mobile phones, tablets, computers
and other devices to access DFS and a
reliable electricity grid. Mobile phones
provide a channel for rapid expansion
of DFS, since many of those who lack
access to formal finance have a phone.
However, a gender gap in mobile
phone ownership exists in many
countries.
DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE
Policy options to overcome limited digital
financial infrastructure are:
(i) Enabling inclusive, interoperable
digital financial payments services
that contribute to gender equality and
help build a trustworthy, robust digital
financial system by promoting efforts for
deploying infrastructure and protocols for
government digital payments to women
that are competitive and interoperable
with private sector payment systems.
Keys to building an inclusive digital
payments ecosystem are competition and
interoperability - the ability to send money
to or receive it from another person even
if they use a different financial service
provider. Governments should promote
competition for digital financial products
and services and implement global good
practices to support competition and
consumer choice.
(ii) Supporting mechanisms for enabling
government payments to women to be
directly deposited into digital accounts
that are easily accessible and under the
women’s control, allowing a range of
digital financial transactions including
payments to governments as well as
firms. Millions of unbanked women
globally receive regular cash payments
from their governments - and digitizing
these payments is a proven way to help
boost financial inclusion.
(iii) Leveraging technology and behavioral
insights to strengthen women’s digital
skills and financial capability. While
there are many potential benefits for
women from access to, and use of, DFS,
there are also potential risks, hence
women consumers of DFS need the
digital skills and confidence to engage
with technology and make financial
decisions that will promote their welfare
and help them avoid financial fraud.
Technology can also create opportunities
to reduce costs with targeted and timely
interventions that can improve decision-
making and financial behaviors.
(iv) Supporting comprehensive consumer
protections that address women’s needs,
including requirements to disclose
product prices and terms in clear
language and appropriate measures
to ensure data privacy and security.
This will reduce the risks from digital
finance by making it easier to identify
whether a given product/service is fit
for its intended use, appropriate for
the particular consumer’s needs, fairly
priced and secure, as well as to compare
options, seek redress and ensure
women’s financial privacy and safety.
GENDER EQUALITY
Policy options for supporting efforts to
Praise for grievance redressal system in India
The GPFI study makes a specific mention about the grievance redressal
mechanisms in the Indian financial services segment. It says: “India has witnessed
a substantial rise in the volume and value of digital financial transactions. Alongside
the growth in digital transactions, the number of complaints has also grown and
therefore, necessitate better redressal mechanisms.
The complaints received in the Offices of the Banking Ombudsman corroborate
this observation. The percentage share of digital complaints to total complaints in
the OBOs increased from 28% in 2017-18 to 33 percent in 2018-19. Therefore, the
Reserve Bank of India has implemented several redress mechanisms. The first,
the Banking Ombudsman Scheme has incorporated Mobile/ Electronic Banking
as valid ground of complaint as of 1 July 2017 and as many as 64,607 complaints
pertaining to digital services were received 2018-19. Second, it has mandated
a dedicated Ombudsman Scheme for Digital Transactions which was launched
on 31 January 2019. Third, all non-bank issuers of Prepaid Payment Instruments
(PPIs) with more than 10 million outstanding PPIs as on 31 March 2019 have been
mandated to appoint an Internal Ombudsman (IO). (Banks with more than 10
banking outlets in India have to appoint IO.)
The IO is an independent authority at the apex of the entity’s grievance
redressal system. The opinion of the IO is binding on the NSPs. Lastly, the
country has launched a Complaints Management System (CMS), a state-of-the-
art application to digitize its grievance redressal process and aid seamless flow
of information amongst the participants like banks, NBFCs, System Participants,
etc. Out of the total number of complaints lodged on the CMS portal, where sex-
disaggregated data is available, 17% were from women. The complaints were
lodged from 24 June 2019, when the CMS was launched, to 17 June 2020.
overcome barriers to equal treatment of (iii) Supporting national financial inclusion
women, which can be embedded in laws, strategies that address both women’s
regulations and institutional norms are: and men’s experiences and needs in
(i) Reforming discriminatory laws and taking all aspects. Many governments have
actions to promote women’s full economic adopted policies explicitly aimed at
and financial participation. Legal increasing financial inclusion. These
barriers to gender equality correlate with policies can improve access to and use
low levels of women’s financial inclusion of digital finance, including by women,
and labor force participation. Increasing by taking a comprehensive, inclusive
women’s economic participation starts approach that involves all relevant
with abolishing legal discrimination stakeholders in the public sector, the
against women. private sector and technology solutions.
(ii) Encouraging and providing appropriate (i) Supporting work towards financial
incentives for financial service providers institutions providing anonymized sex-
that may increase the representation of disaggregated data as part of reporting
women working in financial institutions requirements, making this data available
and financial access points and in publicly and using it to address the needs
decision-making positions. Research of women in product design and/or
in developed and developing countries marketing. Sex-disaggregated data may
show the importance of women in be needed to create a baseline, establish
client-facing roles in financial services. targets and monitor progress. Data can
It has also been found that women also provide insights into which policies
use financial services more often and are having the greatest impact, or which
effectively when they are served by markets, providers or localities are
female bank employees. accelerating progress or lagging behind and
Banking Frontiers March 2021 73
 Research Notes - Digital Financial Inclusion

need additional support.
Though the report is specific to G20
members, it suggests that other governments
should rapidly work towards digital financial
inclusion of all women. “They will not only
drive women’s greater economic participation
but will also benefit their whole economies,”
it says.
The report points out that 2 countries with
programs that focus on women are India and
Peru, where near universal ID coverage has
made it possible to provide financial transfers
targeted to women. Noting specifically about
India, it says in the country, “more than 200
million women who opened accounts as part
of a government policy to facilitate account
ownership are receiving for the first time a
Direct Benefit Transfer of approximately $20
over 3 months.”
The study found that:
1. Women whose wages were paid into
their own DFS accounts increased their
labor force participation and control
over their money
2. DFS payments to women have increased
cost and time savings
3. DFS have improved women’s ability to
make business investments
4. Digital products meet women’s safety
needs
5. DFS improve women’s ability to manage
in a crisis
mohan@bankingfrontiers.com

N E W S

LXME showcases programs on success of women

L XME, the hassle-free platform that works to bridge the gap

between women and finance and working towards building
a community for women to drive money conversations, assessed
Talking about the initiative, Founder of LXME, Priti Rathi
Gupta said: “We conceptualized UnStereotype firstly to appreciate
every woman out there who remained unfazed by the gender-based
the response to its newest women empowerment campaign - restrictions placed on her, and made her mark as an achiever. Secondly,
UnStereotype - as part of activities on the occasion of International to encourage aspiring professionals, by presenting to them stories
Women’s Day celebrations. The company will celebrate IWD with and examples of the go-getters. UnStereotype had participants from
a month-long program highlighting women of substance who across the spectrum, belonging to various industries, and this was
challenged the conventional ways of the society. The initiative, which instrumental in sending across our message - success in any field is
was kickstarted on IWD, will various live sessions, panel discussions possible as it entirely depends on the attitude you foster and outlook
and workshops, with successful women talking about their stories, you possess.”
inspiring other women to become financially independent.
The inaugural event of the campaign saw renowned names
like Navya Nanda, Founder of project Naveli, Vanshika Goenka,
Founder of Kool Kanya, Faye D’souza, journalist, Masoom
More Thrust on AI & BI
Minawala, luxury blogger, Nivedita Bhasin, the youngest woman in 2021
pilot in world civil aviation history and others, coming together on
a single platform to share their experiences and motivate upcoming
professionals.
The objective of the campaign was to drive women of the world
to get what they seek without being held back by the shackles of
stereotypical rules laid down for generations. The initiative has
panel discussions where women from across industries sharing
their success stories to reinforce the
ideology ‘Women CAN and Women
WILL’, a Master Class, comprising
curated workshops with experts on Manav Sachdeva
career and financial planning and Senior Principal Analyst,
Gartner
live sessions where inspiring stories
on breaking barriers, the power of Summary: Indian insurance companies
women through ancient and modern have a plethora of opportunities before
times, Body Positivity, Career Switch, them given their low penetration as
compared to their global peers. However,
Building a Brand for your Business,
issues such as sparse data, inadequate
Civil Rights and Laws every Woman
backend integration making it difficult to retrieve data
should know and women and sexual etc. remain a concern.
health will be discussed.

74 Banking Frontiers March 2021

 Country Report - Blockchain
Blockchain powers efforts to make
Dubai happiest city on earth
The UAE has progressed phenomenally in the use of blockchain in
various aspects covering life and governance in the country:
T
he UAE Government is one that had
officially adopted blockchain technology
for governmental transactions and
towards this it had launched the Emirates
Blockchain Strategy 2021 and Dubai
Blockchain Strategy. The former, announced
in April 2018, aims to bring at least 50% of
government transactions on the blockchain
platform by 2021. The government is confident
that blockchain technology will help save
time, effort and resources and facilitate people
to process their transactions at the time and
place that suit their lifestyle and work. It hopes
to save AED 11 billion in transactions and
documents processed routinely, 398 million
printed documents annually and 77 million
work hours annually. The latter strategy is
intended to help Dubai to be the first city
fully powered by blockchain and make it
the happiest city on earth. The plan has
3 pillars: government efficiency, industry
creation and international leadership.
HAPPIEST CITY
The Dubai Blockchain Strategy is a
collaboration between the Smart Dubai Office
and the Dubai Future Foundation. It will be a
continuous process in exploring and evaluating
latest technologies based on blockchain that
will facilitate seamless, sage and impactful city
experiences. In short, Dubai wants to become
the happiest city on earth.
The strategy is expected to usher in
economic opportunity for all sectors in the city,
and consolidate Dubai’s position as a global
technology leader, in line with Smart Dubai’s
mandate. When the programs under the strategy
are fully implemented, Dubai is expected to have
the first blockchain powered government. And
the cost savings are phenomenal. It is expected
that Dubai will unlock 5.5 billion dirham in
savings annually in document processing
alone. Apart from the city getting benefited, the
platform is also intended to share the technology
with cities across the world.
TRANSACTION PLATFORM
Another blockchain-based effort in the
UAE is the Dubai Blockchain Council, a
venture of Dubai Future Foundation, which
is mandated to explore, discuss current and
future applications and organize transactions
through the blockchain platform. The Council
will facilitate transactions within the various
sectors of financial and non-financial sectors
as well as increase efficiency and reliability
levels. The Council has 46 members, which
include government entities, international
companies, leading UAE banks, free zones,
and international blockchain technology firms.
BLOCKCHAIN CAPITAL
The UAE government’s entity responsible
for overseeing blockchain projects in Dubai
is the Smart Dubai Office. It aimed to make
Dubai the blockchain capital of the world
by 2020. But, in November 2017 itself,
Dubai was named the ‘First Smart City on
the Blockchain’ by the Smart City Expo and
World Congress in Barcelona.
One of the visible efforts under blockchain
technology in the UAE is SILSAL, the first
blockchain-based solution in the ports
industry. It helps to improve tracking and
visibility in Abu Dhabi port, one of the
world’s busiest ports. Built on a blockchain
using digital technology and smart contracts,
SILSAL enables the tracking of cargo without
point-to-point integration.
Similarly, the Abu Dhabi Global Market,
one of the Middle East’s leading financial
centers, created one of the industry’s first KYC
utility projects built on a blockchain platform
to streamline the regulation process by giving
all parties information about the customer.
Blockchain technology is also introduced
in the Dubai Department of Finance so that
staff members no longer have to physically
go through payments collected from various
portals and manually reconcile them. In this
case, blockchain is a promising technology
to yield huge time savings, and offer
flexibility to accommodate various scenarios
and requirements.
The Dubai Land Department is using
blockchain to improve service, collaboration
with other parties involved with the real estate
market and create secured assets. The DLD
can write end-to-end property transactions
on to a real estate blockchain so that all
participants involved in a given transaction
have access to the pertinent information.
CENTER FOR C4IR
Dubai now has the new World Economic
Forum (WEF) Centre for the Fourth Industrial
Revolution (C4IR), which demonstrates how
far the country has progressed in building its
knowledge economy with blockchain at its
core. The think tank focuses on blockchain
logistics and how best to incorporate the
technology in the work of governance and
legislation. It also focuses on how to lead
on legal issues related to blockchain in the
global context.
Similarly, the Dubai Blockchain Center
brings together thought leaders, developers,
investors, and educators to advance
blockchain development and adoption in the
UAE. It also provides specialized courses in
Arabic and English on blockchain technology.
When covid struck, the UAE’s Ministry
of Community Development (MOCD)
has switched to using digital channels for
government services, specifically blockchain
systems and chat systems to complete requests.
The MOCD said it has stopped receiving paper
documents altogether through its customer
happiness centers (UAE’s version of customer
service center) and is accepting approved
digital documents instead. It has been using
blockchain for digital authentication of official
certificates and other documents.
mohan@bankingfrontiers.com
Banking Frontiers March 2021 75
 Country Report - Open Banking
Philippines firming up plans to introduce
open banking
The central bank of the country, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP),
is taking concrete initiatives to introduce open banking in the country:
T
he central bank of the Philippines,
the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas
(BSP), has come out with the
BSP Digital Payments Transformation
Roadmap for 2020-2023, which
essentially is a proposal to stakeholders
about an open banking framework as part
of the regulator’s 3-year digital payments
transformation program. The proposal is
seen as an effort to boost financial inclusion
and transform the Philippines from a cash-
heavy economy to a cash-lite economy.
The central bank, in making the
proposal public and seeking comments
from stakeholders, is actually moving
ahead with fintech ecosystems that
support consent-driven data portability,
interoperability and collaborative
partnerships with formidable financial
institutions and fintech players. This, the
regulator believes, will significantly benefit
the country.
COVID SPURS OPEN BANKING
Open banking is still in its formative
stages in the Philippines. Some observers
believe the covid pandemic has stimulated
financial institutions and regulators to
launch new digital banking products,
especially open banking APIs. In
September 2020, Brankas, a global team
of professionals who are passionate about
improving financial access and operating
in 13 countries, including the Philippines,
and the Fund Managers Association
of the Philippines hosted a first-of-its-
kind event to educate financial services
professionals on the opportunity of open
banking. Titled ‘The State of Open Banking
in the Philippines and Lessons from the
Global Market’, the event saw Mark Perez,
Director/ Department Head, Department
of Supervisory Analytics, BSP, outlining the
crucial role that technological innovations
have to enhance the delivery of financial
services and how the BSP is envisioning
an open banking ecosystem for the country.
He said an open banking policy needs to be
76 Banking Frontiers March 2021
developed to lay down technical, security
and governance standards to be adopted by
BSFIs that intend to publish APIs.
Banking experts also believe that open
banking is an ideal solution for a country like
the Philippines where 7 out of 10 Filipinos
remain unbanked, where customers pay
P100 or more for a bank transfer, and
overseas Filipino workers often pay more
than 10% of their salary in remittance fees.
HELPING SME SEGMENT
In the Philippines, SMEs is one particular
segment of the economy that stands to benefit
from open banking. SMEs make up 99.6% of
all registered businesses in the country and
employs over 70% of the working population.
However, traditional banks struggle to offer
affordable and efficient financial solutions to
them, mainly due to lack of verifiable data and
slow, paper-based processing that often takes
between nine to 12 months to finish. As a
result, SMEs rely on middlemen and manual
effort for payments and data reconciliation,
adding significant costs, time and risk to
their operations, while applying for loans
remain a slow and cumbersome process.
When there is a right infrastructure in place,
it will enable banks and fintech companies
to create more economical, personalized
and seamless solutions for SMEs with much
ease and speed and create an environment
of increased competition, instant access to
information and transparency that opens up
a world of options for them.
Implementation of open banking in the
country is primarily market driven under
the supervision of BSP with multiple banks
having established partnerships with fintech
companies. Even though there are no de
facto open banking regulations, the country
has several initiatives like the central bank-
sponsored National Retail Payment System,
which are indirectly helping to shape an
open banking environment. The country
is also a participant in the API Exchange
project launched by ASEAN Financial
Innovation Network.
2 MAJOR INITIATIVES
At least 2 initiatives in the country are
noteworthy in creating an environment for
open banking:
Union Bank of the Philippines, as part
of its digital transformation, has created
the largest API Developer Portal among
Philippine banks, with over 600 APIs.
The portal is also one of the biggest in
Southeast Asia. The bank was also the
first local bank in the country to expose
its APIs externally in 2016, when it
organized its first Hackathon. The bank’s
APIs cover various capabilities like bills
payment, funds transfer, inquiries,
authentication and other functions that
are exposed for public consumption. The
constantly expanding API portal has
already generated P3 Billion worth of
transactions to date, from both corporate
and individual customers.
Rizal Commercial Banking
Corporation, or RCBC, is the first
Philippine bank to advocate and
implement open banking. The bank wants
to lead the way to open banking to become
the Filipinos’ prime financial inclusion
partner. The bank believes with open
banking, it can power the transactions of
rural banks, cooperatives, micro-financial
institutions and other small players, giving
their customers access to a wide array
of financial services using RCBC open
APIs. The bank has partnerships with
leading fintech companies, local payment
networks PESONet and Instapay and
IBM Blockchain World Wire remittance.
mohan@bankingfrontiers.com
 Finnoviti 2021

BANKING FRONTIERS’

2021
Finnoviti 2021 Winner lists
COMPANY NAME INNOVATION NAME
Central Bank of India Digital Initiatives in FI
HDFC Bank Warehouse Commodity Finance on Mobile
Union Bank of India Data Liquidity & Protection Centre
CAMS CAMSPay
Dvara KGFS Financial Wellbeing Report
Tata Motors Finance Lending Chatbot
South Indian Bank SIB FeeBook
Fino Payments Bank Hyperlocal Search
Bajaj Finance Digitization of Welcome Calling of New Customers
State Bank of India Project Shikhar
Axis Bank Prayagraj Smart City App
Edelweiss SWITCH Driver Based Insurance
Edelweiss General Insurance
#DontUseDontPay
Fincare Small Finance Bank Mcare
Punjab National Bank Verify
Canara Bank Integration of Govt Scheme demat trading insurance
AVANSE Financial Services Enhanced Education Financing Solutions
Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Digi Enroll
Aegon Life Insurance Hyperpersonalised Video
IndusInd Bank IndusOntheGo-Mobile LOS
DCB Bank ATMChain
Airtel Payments Bank Safepay
Kotak Mahindra Bank E Rate Reduction
SBI General Insurance Health Insurance on Whatsapp
IndiaFirst Life Insurance Smart Pay Plan
Federal Bank AI Based Digital Lending Platform

Banking Frontiers March 2021 77

 Keynote Address
Technology must to spur growth
of India’s BFSI sector
Chief Guest at Finnoviti 2021, India’s largest innovation carnival, Dr.
Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Chief Economic Advisor, Government
of India, highlights the importance of technology that could spur the
growth of the Indian banking and financial sector. Excerpts of from his
interaction Manoj Agarwal and Mehul Dani of Banking Frontiers:
Manoj: Would you like to begin by giving a
perspective of Indian financial system versus
the financial system in some large countries
that you think we can be inspired from?
Dr Subramanian: The Indian banking
sector can claim credit in domestic
comparison. But when it comes to
international comparison, I think on most
metrics, the Indian banking sector has
miles to go.
If you look at the credit penetration
metric - private sector credit to GDP, in
India, it is about 52-53%. In other words,
half of our GDP is out of private sector
credit. The average for the OECD (The
Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development) economy is of the order
of 160%. We are one-third of that average.
Now, if you take a section of the country
like north-east, and compare it to OECD
economies, we are 1-16th of that average.
Again, if you look at the number and
scale of banks in India and keep in the mind
that India is the 5th largest economy in the
world, we should have about 7 or 8 banks
in the global top 100. And yet we have only
1 bank in global top 100, and that is 55th
rank - State Bank of India.
Look at any large economy, say Japan in
1980s. Japan, in its heyday, had 18 banks in
the top 100. Today, similarly, 18 of the top
100 banks are Chinese.
Another point is quality of lending.
Every time, there is a banking sector crisis
in India, whether it is in early or late 1990s,
the problem stems from the bad loans that
are given to the large corporate. Whether
it is private sector banks or public sector
banks, none of our banks have actually been
able to figure out a robust sustainable way
of doing large corporate lending without
having these periodic episodes of bad loans
78 Banking Frontiers March 2021
Dr. Krishnamurthy Subramanian
which are in turn are either filled up by tax
payers or depositors.
The banking and financial sector have
2 key problems – the adverse selection
problem and the moral hazard problem.
Our banks have not been able to solve these
problems well. And especially with large
corporate, we have both these problems. No
other country in the world, where a company
has defaulted on its loans previously gets
loan again, but in India, there are several
groups which are serial defaulters, and yet
end up getting credit.
Manoj: If the big lenders are having problems
and not looking at the real picture, do you
think smaller and newer lenders are doing
a better job? Can the country expect more
from them in the near future?
Dr Subramanian: The smaller banks
are faring far worse in terms of their
performance. In terms of their expertise in
indentifying good credit, and being able to
address the adverse selection, and moral
hazard problems, the smaller banks are
struggling far more than the bigger banks on
an average. Though the bigger banks have
also had problems, but as a percentage of
their balance sheet, the smaller banks have
bigger problems partly because they have
not been adept in embracing technology.
The Indian banking system and the overall
financial sector have been slow in embracing
data, analytics and artificial intelligence.
Many global leaders have used these
technologies since 2000, and we are in 2021
where many of our banks are still warming to
the idea of implementing these technologies.
Those new lenders who are coming up must
understand the power of technology, data,
analytics, and then they will be able to do
a much better job than those who are not
using technology. The differentiation should
not be made on new versus old or small
versus big, the distinction has to be made
between those who are technology adept or
embracing the cutting-edge analytics and
those who are still in the old arena.
Manoj: Do you have any message on what
the younger generation - fintechs & startups -
can do to enhance the lending and business,
particularly to SMEs and corporate?
The challenge and the opportunity are in
using the data, analytics in large corporate
lending. When you think about likelihood
of default by borrowers, that is a function
of two things - the ability to repay and the
willingness to repay. Ability to repay is easier
to assess. A lot of research has also been made
on using qualitative parameters to assess the
willingness to repay. In the Indian setting,
especially the large corporate loans, the
bigger problem is about willingness to repay.
And that is something the fintech really
need to think about, think creatively how
they can get data to assess the willingness to
repay. There may be indicators that capture
willingness to repay. It could be about
character, values of the borrowers, things that
are more qualitative, which loan officers can
assess. Hence, there is a lot of potential where
fintechs can actually use a lot of research and
psychology to assess these kinds of things.
Manoj: So, apart from engineers, banks
should have people with psychology and
sociology background for assessing this?
Banks need to hire experts. Specialization
is something that banks need to respect. Our
banks need to use cutting-edge research.
Unfortunately, not many CEOs read enough
on cutting-edge research. CEOs should not
be busy with day-to-day stuff. CEO’s job is to
think and have others to do the work and to
think well, you have to read a lot. They have
to think what kind of people they need to
hire, what kind of research have to be done,
and create a team just to do that.
Mehul: You are a strong supporter and
advocate of wealth creation through
private entrepreneurship. Can you
elaborate on the idea?
Good question Mehul. If you go and
read a very nice book by Angus Maddison,
what he did is, look at the contribution to
world GDP by different countries from 1 AD
till 2000 AD. The salient finding from this
book is that from 1 AD till 1758 AD, ie 17.5
centuries, India was the dominant economic
power, accounting for one-third of the
world’s GDP. In perspective, consider the
United States. At its peak, the United States
contributed to 15-16% of the world’s GDP,
for half a century, ie, US dominance on the
economic side has been for half a century.
A half-century vs 17.5 centuries and 33% of
world GDP vs 16% of the world’s GDP. Now
such kind of dominance does not happen by
sheer luck. Such kind of dominance happens
because of the depth of the economic model
that is followed in the country. And here is
where ethical wealth creation comes in.
You go and read any of the literature,
you’ll find that in India it is a path of our
ethos, among the four global pursuits,
wealth is recommended as a noble pursuit.
Our scriptures talk about dharma, arth,
kama and moksha. Arth is wealth. Similarly,
in our homes we write shubh labh, in other
words, do good and earn the profit, profit
was never a dirty word.
It is unfortunate that for about 50 years,
India chose the socialistic model, where profit
was taken to be a dirty word. Iit is on record
that our first prime minister mentioned
that profit is a dirty word. Wealth creation
and ethical wealth creation has been a part
of India for a millennium. You can read
Thirukural which is written in Tamil, where
Sant Thiruvalluvar says that the lamp that
dispels the darkness of poverty is wealth.
And this is written almost 3500 years ago.
In one of the other shlokas, he talks about
how becoming well it is the easiest way of
destroying the pride of your enemy.
In the last year’s economic survey,
it is not that the economics have not
recommended the private sector for
wealth creation. But they have done that
by appealing to Adam Smith’s and their
descendant, without realising that this has
been a part of India’s DNA.
Mehul: What is the roadmap ahead in
privatization in banking?
This year’s budget has proposed the
privatization of 2 public sector banks
and I think that is a very important move
because it effectively brings the full circle
after 51 years of bank nationalisation.
The unwinding is a very important move
because the productivity and incentives are
much better aligned in the private sector
than in the public sector. We showed it in
the last year’s economic survey as well, that
on most parameters the worst private sector
bank is actually better than the best public
sector bank on most parameters. I think
there is a solid piece of evidence that one
has to pay attention to.

N E W S
NeoGrowth offers Pink Day leave to women staff

N eoGrowth Credit, the SME digital lending platform organized

Gyandhara, a program to recognize that knowledge and awareness
is a continuous process and integral for employees to improve
their skills and be more flexible and adaptable to changes that they
encounter as part of the International Women’s Day celebrations. The
company organized various workshops and seminars for its employees
on topics such as Awareness on Organ Donation, Cardio-Pulmonary
Resuscitation (CPR) Training, Self-Defense Techniques, Breast
Cancer Awareness, Financial Planning and Tax Saving Program and
Expert Talk on Stress Management. There was also a lively session on The company presented a surprise gift to all women employees, which
Diet & Nutrition for Working Women discussing Nutrients & Types of was a travel companion kit and cookies. The company had earlier
Nutrients, Importance of Food Groups, Balanced Diet, Sample Meal organized NeoGrowth Walkathon Challenge, a 30-day challenge to
Plan, Anaemia, Food’s myths related to weight loss, Food Pyramid and walk together as a team to emerge healthier and develop a habit for
Foods for Boosting Immunity. The company also organized an event adopting a healthy lifestyle. It has also presented the women staff with
called ‘Celebrating Purple’ where women employees sported purple Pink Day Leave, which they can avail once in a month to help them
dresses at the workplace since the official colour of IWD 2021 is purple. accommodate personal and social responsibilities along with work .

Banking Frontiers March 2021 79

 BANKING FRONTIERS’

2021
Thank you FINNOVITI 2021 JURY

M NARENDRA MOHAN TANKSALE ASHWANI KUMAR W A WIJEWARDENA

Former CMD, Former Chairman, Former Chairman & MD, Former Central Bank,
Indian Overseas Bank Central Bank of India Dena Bank Deputy Governor, Sri Lanka

VIJAY CHUGH AMAN AGARWAL MAHESH THAKKAR TITUS MATHEW

Payment System Consultant Senior Vice-Chairman, Director General, Advisory Committee Member
Indian Institute of Finance FIDC Incubation Centre, Social
Entrepreneurship & Innovation

ANUJ BHARGAVA L S SUBRAMANIAN SANDEEP SONPATKI

President, Senior Analyst Partner,
The Institute of Management Deloitte
Consultants of India

80 BANKING FRONTIERS FINNOVITI 2021

 BANKING FRONTIERS AWARDS 2021

T H A N K YO U T E C H N OV I T I 2 0 2 1 J U RY
Sunita Handa Deepak Sharma Shiv Kumar Bhasin
CGM IT Channels & Ops, State President & Chief Digital Officer CTO & COO,
Bank of India Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd National Stock Exchange

Rajkumar Kanagasingam, Sachin Seth Lincy Therattil

President,
Rajkumar
Kanagasingam
AWARDS 2021 Partner- Digital & Fintech Head Open Innovation &
Fintech Association of Sri Lanka Leader, Ernst & Young LLP Fintech Platforms, Barclays,
President-Fintech Association
of Sri Lanka

I am a Proud Ambassador & Jury

Member of Technoviti 2021 by
Rise Mumbai
BANKING FRONTIERS.

Catch me live at Technoviti 2021 Awards

on 5th March 2021
Share Fintech & Bigtech Nominations for Technoviti 2021 at
https://bankingfrontiers.com/event/technoviti-2021/
Vinod Kumar Mehul Mistry Mehjabeen Taj Aalam
CIO, Fino Payments Bank Head Payments & Fintech Technology Head-Digital &
Partnerships, Customer Engagement,
IDFC First Bank TATA Capital

Prasanna Lohar David Gyori KV Dipu

Head Technology-Digital, Founding Member, President Operations &
Innovation, Architecture, World Fintech Association Customer Experience,
DCB Bank Bajaj Allianz General Insurance

Akshay Dhanak Zuzar Tinwalla Akhil Handa

CIO, COO, Head-Fintech Mobility & Digital
Magma Fincorp Standard Chartered Bank Lending,
Bank of Baroda

Prasad Kolte Biswabrata Chakravorty Dr. N Rajendran

Chief Operating Officer, CIO, IndusInd Bank CEO, IFTAS
Maharashtra Information
Technology Corporation
(A Govt. of Maharashtra Enterprise)

Vikram Pandya Don Ginsel Dipak Nair

Director - Fintech, Founder & CEO CTO,
S P Jain School of Global Holland Fintech TATA AIG General Insurance
Management

Mridul Sharma Arjun Bhaskaran

COO, Country Manager,
Arka Fincap India & Middle East Gamasec,
Israel
 Technoviti 2021

BANKING FRONTIERS AWARDS 2021

Technoviti 2021 Winner lists

COMPANY NAME Innovation Name
Partner Hub EBPP & Request to Pay
Singular Key Singular Key No-Code Orchestration
TheDataTeam Cadenz.ai
Accuity Firco ComplianceLink
IDBI Intech iMoBot (Social Media Banking Platform)
IDBI Intech iQuick
FSS Embark
Panamax INC. MobiFin Elite
Montran Integrated Payment Hub
Aurionpro icashpro
Nelito FincraftTM Data Archival & Retrieval Solution
Emarld Rating Share Price Evaluation-Orange
Imperalabs IMPERAStack
Senseforth AI Research Conversational AI Platform
whr.loans Warehouse Receipt Finance Suite
Pixdynamics Pixl
Liquitics solutions Pvt Ltd  Liquitics
ORAI-ROBOTICS ORAI
Cashrich  Dynamic SIP
Invoicemart Invoicemart Mobile App
RTIwala -A Unit of Praantech
LegalBot
Media Pvt Ltd

82 Banking Frontiers March 2021

 People Track
Manav Varma to head
Matam Venkat Rao is new MD & Marketing at IIFL Securities
CEO, Central Bank of India IIFL Securities has
Matam Venkata Rao has taken over charge as Managing appointed Manav
Director & CEO of Central Bank of India. Rao was Executive Verma as its Chief
Director, Canara Bank, where he was responsible for the Marketing Officer as
amalgamation of Syndicate Bank and Andhra Bank with the company plans to
Canara Bank. A post-graduate in agriculture and CAAIB, add over 100 million
Rao has varied experience in banking. He joined Allahabad customers in 3
Bank as an Agricultural Field Officer in 1988 and worked years through rapid digital marketing
in various capacities in different geographical areas of outreach. Manav has been working
the country. As General Manager of the bank, he headed as the head of marketing and sales
the bank’s important verticals like Wholesale & Retail development at DHL Smart Trucking.
Banking. At Central Bank of India, he will have a 3-year
He was also Vice President-Marketing
tenure as MD and CEO. The Government had notified
at Angel Broking and led senior
his appointment in Central Bank of India in May 2020 and he takes over from
marketing positions at Bharti Airtel,
Pallav Mohapatra, who retired as the MD & CEO in February 2021.
Reliance Jio, Zee Group, BenQ India.
He has over 19 years of experience.
His areas of expertise include digital
Shyamala Gopinath to head RBI panel products, product management,
The Reserve Bank of India’s committee for evaluating applications for new product development, strategic
universal as well as small finance banks will be chaired by its former alliance and tie-ups, business
Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath. RBI said besides Gopinath, 4
intelligence and analytics, brand
other members are part of the ‘Standing External Advisory Committee’
management, loyalty and retention-
(SEAC) - Revathy Iyer, Director, Central Board, RBI, B. Mahapatra,
marketing among others. In IIFL
former Executive Director, RBI and presently Chairman, NPCI,
Securities, he will report to Sandeep
T.N. Manoharan, former Chairman, Canara Bank, and Hemant G.
Contractor, former MD, SBI and former Chairman, PFRDA. The Bhardwaj, CEO, Retail Broking.
constitution of the committee is in line with the regulator’s guidelines
for ‘on-tap’ licensing. All the applications for universal banks and Amit Gupta joins U GRO as
SFBs will be initially screened by the RBI to ensure prima facie eligibility of the applicants. Chief Treasury Officer
Thereafter, the committee will evaluate the applications, RBI said. U GRO Capital has
appointed Amit
Nepal Rashtra Bank has 2 new Deputy Governors Gupta as Chief
Nepal Rashtra Bank has 2 new Deputy Governors. Treasury Officer.
Nepal Government has appointed Bam Bahadur He is mandated
Mishra and Neelam Dhungana Timsina to the to build long term
positions. Dhungana is the first woman to become partnerships with
NRB’s Deputy Governor. They have been appointed public and private
to the positions as the tenure of incumbent Deputy sector banks, capital market linked
Governors Chintamani Shiwakoti and Shivaraj
borrowings, development financial
Shrestha has ended recently. Dhungana Timsina and
institutions and banks for co-lending.
Mishra were leading the Public Debt Management
Amit has been working as Head
Department and the Foreign Exchange Management Department of the bank respectively.
of Investment and Acquisition at
Shapoorji Real Estate Fund where
Pallav Mohapatra to head Arcil he deployed more than $300 million
Former MD and CEO of Central Bank of India Pallav Mohapatra is the of capital from the fund. With over 17
new head of Asset Reconstruction Co of India (Arcil). Mohapatra, had years of experience, he is a seasoned
retired from Central Bank of India on 28 February. The government financing professional who has
has waived his mandatory one-year cooling off period. Mohapatra has worked with large multinational and
been with State Bank of India as a Deputy Managing Director. Arcil domestic banks, global real estate
said Mohapatra will be responsible for leading the strategic direction consultancy and marquee real estate
and growth journey of the organization. Founded in 2002, Arcil is fund. His rich experience includes
India’s oldest asset reconstruction company. It currently manages exposure to the entire range of
assets of Rs120 billion. Its shareholders include Avenue Capital, SBI,
wholesale banking products.
IDBI, ICICI, PNB and also GIC Singapore.

Banking Frontiers March 2021 83

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