Indian banks behind on digital adoption, it's time to wake up: Uday Kotak

Says banks must be able to feed huge data being churned out by the financial system into analytics and ML. Turnaround time must give an MSME clarity on a loan in minutes, if not seconds

Indian banks have ceded the payment ground to financial technology companies, but it is time to “wake up!”, said Uday Kotak, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Kotak Mahindra Bank on Friday.

He was speaking at the inaugural InFinity Forum organised by International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) and Bloomberg. The topic of the event was “FinTech Beyond Boundaries - A Banker's Perspective.”

When it comes to adopting digital, “Indian banks have been behind the curve,” Kotak said.

“Indian banks have allowed the growth of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) payments and essentially, they've been monopolized by key players – Google Pay