‘You Cannot Just Release An App & Say Please Use My App’

In an exclusive conversation with BW Businessworld’s Brij Pahwa, Usha Ananthasubramanian, MD and CEO, Punjab National Bank speaks on the bank’s latest reforms adhering to digitisation. She also gives her views on women empowerment through loans and demonetisation.

Excerpts:

PNB has seen a Q3 jump in net profit. What do you attribute the achievement to?
PNB is perhaps the largest in public sector space. The bank suffered a loss in March 2016 and since then we have been on a trajectory of making profits. In Q3 of last year, the AQR impact had made the profits narrow down and this time there are a lot of improvements, by way of recoveries and a better operating margin. All of that has helped us to come to this level.

What do you think of the policy of demonetisation at large because people were happy about the policy but unhappy with the implementation citing long queues at banks?
The first and foremost factor that put people off was anxiety because people were worried, there was also some worry about the shortage of currency at that time because we had started sucking the old notes and pushing the new notes into the system. But later we went ahead and distributed coins because we wanted people to have money in their hands. We helped them in exchanging money, so PNB has been at the forefront and a lot of improvisations were done. I think people in Delhi will know of our iconic van which was always stationed outside AIIMS from Day 1 because it helped patients, people with patients, the doctors and nurses.

Everybody would come to the van and have their necessities served. We had another van at the Shivaji stadium; we had put 30 micro ATMs and it became a very iconic intervention. We had covered Central Secretariat, Rajiv Chowk metro station and many government offices. The PNB team would sit there and help out the staff.

This move was also aimed at moving India digital and the private sector banks are now pushing ahead to align themselves with the same, but the government sector banks are still lagging behind. Where does PNB stand in the digital revolution and what steps are being taken by you to improve?
One of the positive follow ups of demonetisation had been digitalisation, so we call it digi monetisation. This has been harbouring of a great change. You said the private sector banks are at it in a big way and government banks are lagging. If you see the class of customers we have, it has to be the education that has to be given to the customers. You cannot just release an app and say please use my app. There is a lot of onus on public sector banks to take forward the digital revolution through educating the customers. Rural folks have phones but need confidence. People are used to seeing the currency in hard form.

I can tell you a village 30 km from Jaipur where I personally visited. The local people have embraced digital technology in a big way. There are 85 shops in the village and each shop has a board outside saying ‘Funds will be exchanged through digital mode’. We are also looking at different channels of engaging people. Even a tea vendor accepts Rs 5 digitally. So that is the excitement in people and it is not an overnight process.

You have been an avid banker. You were also at the helm of affairs at the Bhartiya Mahila Bank. Was the idea good enough to provide equal opportunities in a society where gender gap is still prevalent?
Women form 50 per cent of the population and they are a very potential part of the population. Maybe, we have the intention to empower them in the right direction. Without women fully coming into the economy, we are able to show a 7-8 per cent growth. Imagine if the next 50 per cent of the population comes in to contribute to the economy, I think it will be good. Women need focus, for obvious reasons they are shy to come to the bank. We always think of the metro women, the women in rural areas need more focus. Today, banks like this have certainly emboldened them to come out of their houses. Women, who were all in their houses with a pardah and on the roof top have started coming to open their bank accounts.

Is PNB doing something for women?
We have ‘Akshaya’ branches exclusively for women only. We have across the country a lot of branches coming up in each state which are for women, by women and of women and we have a special product for women called ‘PNB par savings’.

We have another thing called ‘PNB pride’ which is a two wheeler loan exclusively for women. We give concession to women for home loans and car loans through PNB par account. We are also encouraging women weavers through ‘PNB Mudra’ scheme.

Do you think it is a right time to invest in PSU banks?
I am not supposed to comment on the investment part. The banks have started improving but the problem of NPA ageing will demand more provisions. That will have some pressure on us but there is some improvement happening across.