AMA with Salil Datar

Join us for an AMA session with @salil, our COO. Ask him anything about banking in the 21st century and the life-lessons that come with being a Ranji cricketer

We’ll be live with answers to all your questions between 6-7 PM on Friday, 5th June.


The best topics to ask about

  • Reimagining operations for a digital bank
  • The cricketers he played with
  • Most fulfilling project

Drop in your questions and be sure to check back in during the live session!

1 Like

What I would like to see:

  1. Financial education to children (17-20)
  2. Teaching them about investments, basic sound knowledge, half of the population in Indian schools or first year college students have no idea about finances.
  3. To foster a environment where they not only learn on the app itself, but can track their savings, pocket money, Investment, view the trends and understand.

This is something I strongly feel about as a matter of fact, when we were in high school, almost none of us knew what finances were, investments etc. There a majority exceptions to this but it’ll be cool to have.

  1. Why do we as people do not discuss finances properly? Why is there so much hush hush about it?
1 Like

Open banking- will it be helpful if India has an Open Banking Standards Board like UK.
Can 80% of the snacks purchases during Live Sports events in Stadiums shift to Digital mode?

1 Like

What is the role of operations in a neo bank ? Is this more on customer support and compliance related?

Some helpful tips before you start :checkered_flag:

  • Please only ask one question by replying to this topic a single time, using the Reply button at the bottom. It’s also helpful to scroll to the bottom while :open_book: reading the topic to make sure nobody else has asked the same question first, before you ask… right? ! :ok_hand:
  • Please do not reply to anyone else’s post. The only purpose of replies here in this topic is to ask the author one question. If you’d like to discuss a related topic in more detail, create a new topic.
  • Please ask all your questions in one post. We’ll surely take the first one (or all), so everyone gets a chance ! :wink:

Overall in the financial services industry there is a lot of focus on change management in ops. Specially in the KPOs and consulting, though these kind of projects involving trade /system migration is good model for outsourcing projects, it’s often too stretched, do you think fintech start-up partnerships/acquisition will help ease some of the industry pressure and if so how ?

1 Like

If you could, what would you advice your 30 year old self?

Welcome everyone! And say “Hi” to @salil, COO at Jupiter! :cricket_bat_and_ball: :construction_worker_man:
Salil is here between 6 and 7 p.m. to answers all your questions. Comment on this thread with your questions and we’ll answer it live, right here!

Hi @Salil… what are the top 3 changes that you foresee in the banking business post pandemic

Hi Salil,

First, thanks for your service to the banking industry in India :slight_smile: .
You must have witnessed how banking has evolved and transformed over these years. What according to you are a few things that has hardly changed in the banking industry during the course and shall continue to be ?

Further, would like to know in what areas Jupiter is planning to employ machine learning (AI-ML-DL), which I believe is another leap forward technology in the banking industry.

3 Likes

Hi @salil,

How should Neobanks think about profitability, given that revenue sharing avenues with banking partners are very limited in India?

Thanks,
Vardhan

1 Like

I think I would like to answer your last question first.

My feeling is that the hush-hush has a sociological angle to it. Historically, we have been a protective society with elders/parents as heads of family generally taking care of financial matters (till kids step out to work or get married). Also till the 1990s, we have been a scarce economy where the head of the family was many a time responsible for members beyond the immediate family. This provided hardly any elbow room for parents to discuss money-related topics with their children.

Over the years however, we have seen a shift in this area, on account of multiple factors:

  • As we move from a scarce economy to a surplus economy, the flexibility of parents to provide money in the hands of their children (as pocket money) has gone up
  • With different options such as IB, ICSE being made available in schooling, curriculums now provide options like Commerce and Business Management, which educate children on money matters
  • And finally, access to finance-related information on TV and internet has opened up children’s minds and made them more financially aware
    At Jupiter, we are trying to fill that gap ourselves, and one of the early steps was to start
    Millions by Jupiter on Instagram and YouTube. Do check it out! Our main goal has been to plug the gap on awareness.
1 Like

There are talks of MDR charges going away and UPI becoming free, what’s the incentive of any payment platform to invest in India to improve infra? Whats the role of iSpirt behind all this?

What is the difference between a regular bank and a neo-bank?

How does a typical day of COO of a neo bank look like? or What are the roles and responsibilities of a bank’s COO?

PS: Where can I see your cricket stats?

Question 1:
Certainly, with the UK introducing the Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE), open banking has made big strides in the UK by standardizing the API framework, creating messaging and security standards, and setting out processes to manage disputes complaints. It has helped challenger/neo-banks to allow customers to start a relationship and test their services while continuing to bank with the traditional banks.

In India, RBI too has started opening up to Digital Banking. Over the last few years, it has taken steps to introduce the digital payments infrastructure in the form of NPCI and UPI. It has also allowed digital wallets, payment apps, eKYC and recently, video KYC. This has led to a mini payments revolution, allowing fintechs such as third party UPI apps to simplify payments for customers and move away from the cash economy.

The extent of digital penetration can be gauged from the fact that, each day on an average, the payment systems in India process more than 10 crore transactions of nearly INR 6 lakh crore. Today, digital payments account for around 97% of daily payment system transactions in terms of volume. This has been made possible with an accelerated growth of over 50% in the volume of digital payment transactions in the last five years.

With the Account Aggregator model being introduced, access to banking data is already being democratised. It is giving customers the flexibility to access their banking data by giving their consent from a place other than their bank.

Recently, the RBI Governor also mentioned about the RBI having an open mind on allowing digital-only banking which is very encouraging.

Shaktikanta Das "The future of banking will not be a continuation of the past. We would see a very different banking sector, in terms of structure and business model”

Question 2:
Yes, absolutely! The current innovations in payments have already enabled this right now. Small ticket size and high frequency payments have been a huge use case from millennials when we talk about UPI. And now during the Covid-19 crisis, to avoid touch currency, almost everyone is opting to use digital money and so most shopkeepers have started offering QR codes for payments.

If I’d choose to summarize them in 4 points

  1. Be ready to learn as well as unlearn – The world is changing too fast. You will need to learn new ways of doing things, but at the same time, as paradigms change, you will also need to be ready to unlearn things that got you here.
  2. If you already haven’t, take care of your finances NOW – Inflation has a habit of creeping up on you. Value of Rs. 1M today will not be the same 10 years from now
  3. Some things stay beyond time and space – Ensure to pick up a passion or a hobby early on. It should be something that will keep you happy and engaged even after you decide to retire
  4. Step out of your information bubbles – Make an effort to get a different perspective and go beyond your own WhatsApp / Insta / Facebook circles

HI Rajesh - It changes alot of things, but the top 3 will be:

  1. Digital will become the norm rather than the exception
  2. Niche banking will become more prevalent as Neo Banks start focusing on solving user-specific problem areas
  3. Customers will become more conservative while experimenting with newer options

Hi Vardhan,
Neobanks have to look at building a business model which looks not only at revenue (asset side) but also the liability side. Both sides of the balance sheet equally important.

1 Like