Payments to be most-used service on YONO 2.0, says SBI chairman C S Setty

The country’s largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has launched YONO 2.0, a reimagined version of its digital platform, with the aim of competing with UPI heavyweights such as PhonePe and Google Pay. The bank is confident that the revamped platform offers one of the most seamless payment journeys, with payments expected to be the most-used service on the new app.

 

“Yes, I would like to compete with them. We had extensive engagement with our customers, and the most important feature they wanted us to reimagine was payments,” SBI Chairman C S Setty said.

 

“It’s one of the most seamless journeys that we have built. The UPI stack has been completely reimagined. We believe that payments or fund transfers will be the most-used service on YONO 2.0,” Setty added.

 

Currently, PhonePe and Google Pay together control over 80 per cent of UPI payments in the country. However, SBI has clarified that it will not offer cashbacks or rewards to acquire customers on the payments side.

 

Setty said YONO currently has about 96 million users, and SBI aims to double this number to 200 million over the next two years through YONO 2.0. The original YONO platform was launched in 2017.

 

Additionally, Setty highlighted that SBI does not have immediate plans to monetise the platform. “Monetisation of YONO is not on the table right away,” he said.

 

“YONO 2.0 prepares us to double growth across customer segments, reduce time to market by 30-40 per cent, onboard the next 10 crore Indians entering formal banking, serve India’s rising middle class and emerging affluent, and connect over 23,000 branches and field teams into one unified digital fabric,” Setty said.

 

He further added that SBI opens nearly 70,000 accounts every day, and the bank aims for 90 per cent of daily account openings to happen through the YONO platform.

 

Setty said the bank never compromised on investments in YONO 1.0.

 

According to SBI, with the new YONO app and internet banking now operating on a unified backend architecture and sharing the same user interface, customers will experience seamless omnichannel and cross-platform continuity.

 

“With these advancements, SBI is redefining its digital banking ecosystem far beyond the app itself, aiming to set new benchmarks in personalised customer experience and user security,” the bank said.

 

Setty also noted that the objective is for the new version of YONO to remain relevant for at least a decade without major changes.

 

SBI has added 3,500 field managers, and another 6,500 field managers will be added by March 31, 2026, he said.