BFSI is the most digitally mature sector, says Arundhati Bhattacharya

At the Business Standard BFSI Summit 2025, Salesforce India Chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya spoke about technology, leadership, and women in banking

Technology has become both the strongest survival tool and the biggest challenge for banks today, says Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairperson and chief executive officer (CEO), Salesforce India, and former chief of State Bank of India (SBI). In a conversation with Nivedita Mookerji at the Business Standard BFSI Summit 2025, she warns that no organisation can survive without a robust information-technology (IT) backbone.

 

How do you look at the world of technology after coming from SBI, and it has been five years at Salesforce now?

 

Even at the bank, I strongly believed that any organisation not taking IT seriously will not sustain itself. Whether you’re a small family-run shop or in HR, logistics, manufacturing, or services — a strong IT backbone is essential. Technology is evolving at an unprecedented speed. We are now working with Agentic AI, and in just 13 months we have covered enormous ground, enabling Agentic enterprises. The pace of change is extraordinary, even within tech.

 

 

From the world of SBI to this speed of technology, how has the transition been?

 

SBI teaches you to lead while learning. Because you’re transferred often — to different locations and across verticals and teams — you learn on your feet. I used to say that once I found a good hairdresser and tailor for my saree blouses, it was time to be transferred! This environment prepares you to add value immediately, which helped me in transitioning from 40 years in banking to working with people five generations younger.

 

If you were to describe your journey as a woman leader, how would you put it?

 

I never thought of it in a precise way. For a woman in India with a career, it’s a constant calibration between family responsibilities and work. There are moments when you wonder if it’s worth it, but you must accept the reality and still move forward. Many women ask if I faced difficulty getting junior male colleagues to listen. I didn’t. Either I was lucky or any comments never reached me. I think what worked was my ability to communicate in a way that excited them as much as it did me. When people are convinced and energised, the gender of the leader doesn’t matter.

 

Can you share a few things you did for your women colleagues, apart from allowing sabbaticals?

 

The sabbatical was one, and I hoped other public-sector banks would follow, though they haven’t yet. I still hope they do, because it’s very helpful. I noticed many women were in platform roles, not in branch operations like their male colleagues. To qualify for the next promotion, they needed two years in an independent role and two years in rural service. Yet, in rural areas, landlords wouldn’t rent premises to single women. So, we identified rural branches women could commute to, or we rented accommodation in the bank’s name with multiple rooms for women branch managers. Many opted for these roles, and some told me those shared years were the best of their lives.

 

We also implemented cervical-cancer vaccination for all women staffers and their wards. And I tried to ensure that in major centres, we had at least one lady doctor — a gynaecologist or paediatrician — so women didn’t have to spend time outside arranging appointments.

 

There was a time when we had many woman CEOs across banks. Not any longer. What happened?

 

When I left, I left behind a strong pipeline of women, many of whom have achieved a lot. My former chief financial officer (CFO) is now CFO of the World Bank. Another headed Indian Bank and later NSDL. Women who were deputy managing director then have gone on to lead in several places. The glass ceiling still exists and takes time and effort to break. We were fortunate to have a strong cohort across PSBs, private and foreign banks. I recall a reception hosted by Raghuram Rajan (who was Reserve Bank of India governor from 2013 to 2016) — there were more sarees than suits in the room!

 

As a banker earlier, how do you look at the banking universe today from the outside?

 

The regulator plays a significant role. The sector’s challenges today are different. One of the biggest now is technology — how banks use it to deliver better services, and how they reconcile the fact that work done by people can now be done by digital agents that can think, generate, and act. Banks must leverage tech to reach the last mile — to 600,000 villages where financial literacy is still lacking but crucial for unlocking India’s potential.

 

BFSI is the most digitally mature sector, so it must absorb new technology and use it daily to deliver the best to customers and show the way for other industries.

 

During your SBI tenure, you took steps to bring in technology. SBI was called a “Smart Bank”. Looking back, could you have done more?

 

We did what we could at that time. Many things available today weren’t available then. When YONO launched, it was far ahead of private or foreign banks. The risk-management techniques we put in place, tech for credit underwriting, reaching the right customers through inclusion efforts, and the range of products — we pushed the envelope. With hindsight, perhaps we could have focused more on agility. You can’t be agile and nimble when you are working with systems that are very stodgy and are rooted in the past, which are a lot of legacy. You can’t write off all technical debt.

 

Other than technology, was there any other unfinished business?

 

Customer service will always remain a work in progress because expectations keep rising. Take technology: Customers want safety, but if we add multiple login layers, they complain; if login is easier, they worry about risk. We could have done better with customer literacy — explaining safety measures while retaining convenience. Every stakeholder, including the regulator, has a role.