SBI looking to hive off Yono into separate subsidiary, says Rajnish Kumar

The country's largest lender State Bank of India is actively looking to hive off its digital platform Yono into a separate subsidiary, its chairman Rajnish Kumar said.

Yono or You Only Need One App is the lender's integrated banking platform.

"There is very serious thinking going on and we are in discussions with all our partners to hive it (Yono) off as a separate subsidiary," Kumar said at a banking and finance conference, Sibos 2020, organised by the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT).

He said once Yono becomes an independent entity then even SBI would become its user or one of the users.

However, he added, the discussions are at an early stage and the valuation of Yono has also not been done so far.

Recently, Kumar had said Yono could have a valuation of around USD 40 billion.

"The statement (on valuation of Yono) which I made was that if I look at valuations of all the start-ups and compare then definitely Yono should not be less than USD 40 billion. As of now we have not done any valuation exercise but that is what I believe is the potential," Kumar said.

Launched three years ago, Yono has 26 million registered users. It witnesses 5.5 million logins per day along with over 4,000 daily disbursals of personal loans, 16,000 Yono Krishi Agri Gold loans.