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Kotak Mahindra Bank offers “Pick up and unbox your account” capability powered by Decimal Technologies

July 12, 2022

Kotak Mahindra Bank Limited is an Indian private sector bank headquartered in Mumbai, India. Founded as Kotak Group in 1985, it received its banking license in 2003.  It is one of the largest Indian private sector banks by market capitalization, with 1600 branches & 2519 ATMs. It offers banking products and financial services for corporate and retail customers in the areas of personal finance, investment banking, life insurance, and wealth management.

Decimal Technologies is an India based enterprise-grade technology solution provider specializing in customer onboarding and digital fulfilment process. Their solution suite built using the latest technologies encompasses front end to middleware.  The company has expertise in technology integration and extensively leverages agile delivery processes.

Project Scope:

The one-line vision of the project was a solution that allows “Pick up and unbox your account” capabilities. To achieve this, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Decimal devised a solution where bank accounts could be opened with pre-created sachets. These sachets could potentially be handed out by the Bank to source customers innovatively from multiple channels such as shopping retails counters, HR inductions, and branch banking.

The pre-created sachets contained the customer relationship number and account number which was pre-generated and activated with the core banking system. The customer was only required to open the self-service bank app on mobile devices and initiate the limited KYC for account opening. Once the customer submitted this information it was directly stored in the back end. This information could be accessed instantly by the bank agent present on the premises to complete the full KYC of the customer to open a full fledge savings account.

An example of a live scenario where this solution worked was in an HR induction, where the bank agent could distribute the pre-generated kits to all the employees present. The employees could submit their details which were readily available on the assisted mobile solution of the bank agent. The Agent could retrieve the data and help the employees to complete their full KYC using biometric identifications and open full savings account in the core banking system instantly.

Project Details:

To achieve this outcome, Decimal Technologies deployed a solution named “Kotak Xpress” which was, in essence, a progressive web application and a native mobile application with a common backend. The deployment took place in the Liability Operation Department of the bank, with the three-month implementation going live on 23 August 2020. A five-member team from Decimal worked on the program.

The entire basis of this solution was to have a rapid account opening process that enabled Kotak Mahindra Bank to increase its customer base seamlessly. The solution envisaged taking the account onboarding process across various customer demographics through an omnipresent mechanism. Some of the other use cases for the sachet account opening process could be being a part of marketing campaigns deployed at airports, exhibitions, etc.

Sachet kit could potentially also be a means of opening an account where no branches are present, thus taking forward the concept of branchless banking. While sachet is the means of opening a limited balance account, it could also be coupled with video KYC to enable instant savings account opening.

Implementation:

This solution creation and deployment required complex reimagination of decades long-established banking practices. The solution needed to be very innovative for it to be a success. Some of the innovations and new modules deployed in the program were instant kit envelope, a progressive self-service web application for a customer, assisted native mobile app for bank agents, digital operation web portal for risk and verification unit of the bank, and vKYC module. Kotak and Decimal completed the implementation in an aggressive timeframe of 12 weeks. At full scale, the solution has been designed to cater to the opening of 50,000+ accounts per day.

Customer Impact:

This program has helped improve Kotak Mahindra Bank’s rate of customer acquisitions by at least 25%. This significant initiative has impacted both the top line and the bottom line of the organisation. At the same time solution also enabled easy salary account onboarding for customers customer, attracting key new customers to the bank and creating an impact in the ecosystem.

It also made bank accounts accessible to customers that would otherwise not necessarily be a part of formalised banking thus increasing the outreach of the banking ecosystem.

IBSI View:

This program emphasis the innovation carried by banks leveraging on the local customs of the banks home country. The use of Xpress account opening kit is one of the innovative ways of attracting new customers to the bank. This innovation cleverly leverages technology to reduce onboarding friction and is highly replicable in similar markets. This program if successfully adopted could affect increasing the penetration of formal retail banking.

KEY FACTS

Bank: Kotak Mahindra Bank
Bank Headquarters: India
Solution partner: Decimal Technologies
Solution: Xpress Kit
Timeline: 3 months

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