‘Techies At Banks Get Satisfaction Of Having End-to-end Ownership’

Gone are the days when techies of the world had a singular approach to where they took their skillset. While they have undoubtedly gravitated towards the IT sector for so many years, the Covid-19 pandemic has given them new options and challenges, especially in the Financial Services industry, which has had to take on digital transformation to adapt to the times. 

Being a tall leader in financial services, Kotak Mahindra Bank has fast become a preferred choice as an employer for techies under the able leadership of its President & Chief Technology Officer, Milind Nagnur. BW Businessworld recently got in touch with Nagnur to discuss how the Bank has become an attractive proposition for techies in the country and more. Read on for the excerpts from the interview.

How has the ‘digital’ come into play for Kotak Mahindra Bank in the last two years? 

We have seen an acceleration in our digital and technological priorities since the onset of Covid-19 in March 2020. For instance, to open an account, earlier our customers had to go to a branch and identify themselves and their documents. It can now all be handled digitally. Today, the account opening process through our 811 platform does not require our customers to visit a branch. They could have our full-functioning financial banking services at their fingertips within minutes, sitting anywhere in the country. 

In terms of internal team member experience, things have changed drastically as well. The work model has now shifted to hybrid mode, which is here to stay. Kotak has chosen a hybrid methodology to enable work-life balance for its team members. We meet at the office whenever necessary as it's very important to keep the human-to-human connect through that channel. But the office is just a channel for us, much like Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Additionally, we have also adopted this methodology while interacting with our banking and financial services partners.

How have the interactions with customers on your digital mediums risen since the onset of pandemic?

At present, more than 90 per cent of our banking transactions happen through the digital channel, through our mobile application. As you know, we have over 1,700 branches and there are customer interactions at a branch level and also at a digital level. Our mobile application now is our largest branch.

Kotak has a lot more tech-focused people on its payroll today. But is it a must for financial services companies to have people with technical skills?

Astute bankers have realised that banking is a technology business. I began my career as a software engineer and have worked in infrastructure and cybersecurity in the financial sector. But I am a techie at heart and banks like Kotak Mahindra have taken significant strides in getting new leadership in, whether it is on the technology-side or on the product side. For example, our Chief Customer Officer Bhavnish Lathia joined us in August 2022. He comes in with 18 years of experience at Amazon in the US. So, our technology-product mindset in how we are designing our business offerings on the product side, combined with significant engineering capabilities on the technology side, gives us a powerful engine that's going to propel us into future. 

My appeal and my call-to-action for all software engineers and technology people, especially, those who work on cloud technologies and the newest technologies, is to look at the work we do, the culture we are building and join us in this journey to enable financial well-being for millions of our customers and fellow citizens all over India.

A typical kid, who has done a technology-related degree, aspires to work for a large technology company. He/she also looks at other countries for opportunities because they believe that their qualifications are better leveraged elsewhere. Why would you then become an employer of choice for a technology professional?

Our products have to be at par with those from a technology company. Companies like Apple are looking at issuing credit cards, allowing savings account and accumulating cashbacks now. Their next step could be [and I am speculating] wealth management and financial services. On the other hand, banks are hiring the best talent in technology and product from tech companies and FinTech companies. 

Traditionally, banks have been good at regulation and risk management while technology companies have been good at building digital platforms that give consumers access to services on their fingertips. But, we are seeing a convergence happening now.

The confluence of different factors right now makes technology in banking extremely exciting. This could be especially exciting as you get to work with other techies who are building amazing software on cloud platforms with CI/CD, with event based architecture, with edge caches.

A great deal of satisfaction from working in tech at a bank comes from taking end-to-end ownership of features and functionality, which might be hard for a software engineer to have in a tech company. While I have great respect for the products that tech companies deliver, at banks there's a huge sense of purpose, engagement, culture, teamwork, and opportunity to own independent modules. 

If you visit our floor today – where our 811 team operates – it has a completely open floor plan with billiards and ping-pong tables, and there are no cubicles. Simple things like that make employees feel at home, at ease and in a comfortable environment.  We're focusing on building scale and capacity to meet future growth. This opens a plethora of opportunities for techies to join us and collaborate with to use technology to transform the banking space.