Country?s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), is planning to make use of its technological platform extensively built, which is built at over Rs 500 to 600 crore.
The bank wants to shift 40% of its transactions through alternate channels by the end of the fiscal.
Expanding its IT platform, the bank is going for an integrated payment hub. The project is part of the master IT investment plan, to be implemented during the the current fiscal.
Once it happens, the SBI will become the world?s first bank to have the facility. The idea is to streamline the existing payments and IT architecture, to make it more scalable and robust and to create channel-friendly payments solutions.
It will create a flexible, workflow-based payments processing architecture, which will enable quick introduction of new payments products, essential in evolving electronic payment space.
For starters, the proposed hub would act as a back office support for various payment modes like ATM, mobile (phone) banking and even branch banking.
Currently, the facility is available in parts only that too in quite a few European countries, Australia and the US. Talking to FE, A Krishna Kumar, deputy managing director & head, IT (State Bank of India), said, ?Technical assessment is under process for the proposed integrated hub and soon we would go for request for proposal (RFP) for the same?.
The bank has already shortlisted six vendors out of a total of 30 bids that had come to us initially, added Kumar. The project may need few hundred crores and it would take two-three years for the system to become operational, he said.
The project is also likely to free the IT network of the bank from any kind of clog. The core banking solution (CBS) of the bank is already taking load of various transactions like ATM, internet, RTGS,NEFT and mobile banking in the 12,000 branches. ?We want to free the branch space and branch time of the bank through the proposed hub. It will further help us use the staff working at the branches for space marketing,? said Kumar.