ICICI Bank's digital push: sets up innovation lab, enters fintech tie-ups

ICICI Bank is taking the digital route for growth, by partnering and investing in financial technology companies, as well as, setting up an innovation lab and a team to conceive digital solutions.

“We want to be digital at the core, remove paper and as many people as possible and have end-to-end processes driven by technology,” said B Madhivanan, Group Executive and Chief Technology Officer (CTO), ICICI Bank. 82 per cent of the bank’s transactions by savings account customers are currently digital, excluding ATM transactions.

Madhivanan said that the bank wants to ‘think like a tech company’. The bank has set up innovation labs in Mumbai and Hyderabad, with a team of 22 people, headed by Rohan Angrish, who was previously the Chief Technology Officer for digital lending firm Capital Float.

The top private sector bank is working on solutions for making microlending more feasible, improving cash management efficiency and developing a marketplace for corporate commercial papers and debt. The team was set up three to four months back and the bank expects results within an 18-month window.  

While Madhivanan calls the organic route the ‘second leg of the bank’s digital journey’, fintech partnerships are the first leg. The bank has a Rs 1 billion fund for fintech partnerships that “facilitate banking and blend into the core of ICICI bank.” The bank has already invested Rs 400 million and plans to invest the remaining Rs 600 million by the next six months.

The bank has partnered and invested in fintech player FingPay, which enables merchant-onboarding by using electronic KYC, PAN & IMPS verification. The bank has used some of its functionalities for enabling the Aadhaar pay option on ‘Eazypay’, its digital point-of-sale application.

The ICICI group also holds a 20 per cent stake in Arteria, which provides supply chain solution and payment integration services to original equipment manufacturers and their supply chain network. The bank has partnered with digital onboarding solution company Signzy and used it for enabling the bank’s current account opening application.  

The bank is also working on robotic process automation, which is currently used for 30-35 per cent of the bank’s processes, i.e. around one million transactions per day. It has five mobile applications for various segments of customers viz. iMobile- its primary banking app, iPal - an Artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, iBiz for corporates and MSMEs, and meraiMobile for rural lending and Pockets- the bank’s e-wallet.