The digitization of banking system is here to stay, and the only way forward is to embrace it. On the other hand, the human contact is as important as the technological innovations in a bank, given the nature of its business activities. As a result, banks are increasingly facing the challenge of understanding and creating the right mix of its virtual and digitallydriven banking activities and the more traditional brick-and-mortar business model to stay relevant and attractive to different customer bases. We sat with Gamika de Silva, Head of Marketing and Sales at Seylan Bank to discuss Seylan Bank’s experience with the technological transformations and digitization processes.
Do you think customer expectations from banks have changed over the years?
There are no major changes in terms of what customers want from banks. We do continuous research on customers’ needs and wants and we also map them against competition as well. We have not really seen a major shift in terms of these variables. However, in terms of priorities, a few things are changing. For example, if you look at customer expectations from banks – the stability, the security etc., – those have become the hygiene factors. Apart from that, there are a few changes happening in different segments of banking activities – service factors, innovation factors, convenience factors – priorities are changing, and expectations are rising significantly.
The more upwardly mobile youth and the young employed are looking at the convenience factor versus the service factor. Let’s say you log into internet banking, a kiosk or an ATM, they look at the seamless service coming across – and not necessarily from a human contact. On the other hand, the relatively older client base would like to come and talk to a bank officer – for them the personal contact and customer service is relatively higher in priority.
In other words, the dynamics are different between the young and the more mature clientele in terms of how they perceive and interpret the security and reliability of a bank. If you take a 30-40-year-old working executive, these individuals hardly visit a bank – they prefer to have their banking services available to them at their finger tips either through internet banking or banking apps, or on the other hand, at their door step. Simply, they are looking at convenience. In contrast, those who like to visit a bank to obtain their services look at convenience in terms of accessibility, parking and the service level you get from the counters etc.
How does Seylan Bank the brickand-mortar bank set up the virtual environment that is increasingly gaining popularity?
I think we are a bank which balances both a youth segment and an older client base quite well. Our audience is a wellbalanced mix of all ages – from the youngest Tikiri account holders to senior citizens. Over the years I am proud to say that we have been scoring impressively on our mystery shopper survey. I am proud to say that we have come on top in the last research we have done benchmarking against the competition. Thus, service is something we are known for; we are the bank with a heart, therefore we insist that a high-quality service is delivered at all levels. Of course, service is a subjective factor and people’s expectations are different. Nevertheless, we continually invest in resources and training in strengthening our service delivery. We have a separate service quality management department which oversees service quality across the board at different contact points. Our staff are trained and motivated for high quality service delivery while mechanisms are put in place to deliver that human touch.
On technology too, we are progressing well -we are the most active and most dynamic brand on social media. As a result, the bank has a lot of engagement with the youth audience. In addition to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we are also reachable on WhatsApp and with our pop-up chats, whenever someone logs into our website, chat agents are available for any help, support or clarifications needed from the bank. Moreover, we are also the first bank to advance the Artificial Intelligence Bots, and we have mapped the customer’s requests to the system so that it can handle customer queries at a satisfactory level, without much human interaction. However, after the initial stages, the customers are directed to the relevant channels to handle their requirements. Also, we have plans to invest on technology in the immediate future, both in terms of infrastructure and resources to help progress into the next level of innovation. For us, innovation is driven by the motivation to create and enhance customer convenience. Innovation for the sake of it does not really work for us. That is where our motto “Bank with a heart” comes in. We put the customer at the forefront and look at how technology can bring about greater convenience and invest in R&D accordingly.
Banks are also increasingly physically more reachable, either through extended banking hours or availability during traditional banking holidays? What is Seylan Bank’s view and strategy on this physical accessibility?
Currently we operate with a network of 170 branches, and we have plans to increase the branch strength over 200, and we are conducting feasibility studies where our footprint has the strongest potential to grow. In addition, we are also expanding our ATM network. We have taken a selective approach towards extended banking hours, and that network of branches is also gradually increasing. Of course, not all our branches need to have this facility – typically in high-density towns where there is business potential, we have our extended business hour services. Most importantly, the bank is accessible anywhere, anytime via our internet banking, Mobile App, Social Media channels or through our call centre.
What are the challenges you see in adapting technology?
The inherent challenge of technology lies in the investment part of it, and it is common to all. We need to justify to the stakeholders the business impact of investment in technology. We have looked at technology both from a
Moreover customer convenience perspective as well as a medium to long term profitability and overall growth for the bank. There are also many challenges when it comes to the development part of technology – time lines, actual delivery of products, the design of the user interfaces can all be quite challenging, but we have the right skills and capabilities at the bank to handle them. Most importantly, we have a fantastic cross-functional team consisting of internal experts on banking, operations, customer care, marketing etc., for these developments, and are not handled by IT in isolation, which makes sure that the end solution is aligned to customer requirements. We are relatively a smaller team, and our decision-making process is designed in such that we are empowered to make decisions at each level which allows us to make both swift decisions and reflect combined thinking in producing solutions.
A problem of communicating in the virtual environment is that a potential customer could in fact be speaking to multiple banks to obtain a service. How does Seylan stand out in this sort of a situation?
Firstly, it is a challenge to all marketers, so in a way it is a level-playing field. With the landscape of banking changing, and greater involvement of technology, the choices available to consumers are increasing rapidly, and the customer is on a more powerful footing. Our strategy is to strengthen the Seylan brand in a way that it is at least at the consideration level when a customer is on the lookout for a banking service. All our efforts are aligned towards this strategy. Therefore, whenever a customer thinks of getting a personal loan, a housing loan or a credit card or opening a savings account, we want to be among the first three choices that they are thinking of, and of course they approach. Secondly, we design, reevaluate our products and services on a continuous basis, so that the appeal and relevance of our products are higher, and we stay ahead of the competition. Banking is a highly regulated sector – there is not much room for pricing advantages. However, we innovate in terms of our services. If you look at our personal loans, we have a two-day service and a door step delivery service. Our sales team will go to the client’s doorstep, ensure that the documents are in order and collect them on behalf of the client. Moreover, from the time the loan application is lodged, we disburse the loan facility within 48 hours, if there are no major issues. This is an example of a process innovation we have done. The success of our teams, as I mentioned before, is its cross-functional nature which allows us to make wholesome decisions swiftly. Our empowerment to make decisions and the flexibility has allowed us to provide more customer-focused solutions. That is how we stay ahead of the game, and we continually look at how to maintain our competitive edge.
How is Seylan Bank performing on the mobile banking front?
I think we have plenty of room to grow in this space. While we speak, there is a lot of development happening on the mobile banking aspect of Seylan Bank, and we look forward for the release of some ground-breaking innovations next year, and positively disrupt the market with these innovations. The smart phone penetration is very high in Sri Lanka, and we want to leverage on that, as well as to provide our clients a seamless service through multiple channels. Right now, I am not in a position to divulge more information, but we are making progress on the mobile banking front continually.
What is a product that you launched and marketed successfully in the recent past, and what is the strategy used to popularize it?
A classic example would be our personal loan product. A couple of years back, we had an unbranded plain vanilla personal loan product offering. We have been in the personal loans market for just about 2 years now, but we have the fastest growing personal loan portfolio, and have the highest asset quality. The banking industry recently has been challenged by high Non-Performing Asset (NPA) ratios, but I am proud to say that we have the lowest NPAs in the personal loan category across all banks. One major success factor of this product was our consumer led thinking. The insights generated from both the credit department and the marketing department helped in innovating a product that was very well received by the target audience. Our strategy to summarize was to a) create a unique selling proposition and b) innovative marketing through which we managed to make everybody aware of the product and c) a strong distribution channel. We have a dynamic sales team which we put together two years ago, which has been handpicked. Our sales team has managed to reach an audience beyond our expectations as well. We also had a successful sales orientation at the branch level, which encouraged going to the customers with this new product. In summary, the combination of the product, process and distribution catalyzed by a strategically thought out marketing plan and a communication campaign contributed to the immense success of our personal loan product.
Cost savings for the branches?
Right now, we have launched several initiatives. We are also looking at processes to improve their overall efficiencies in terms of time put in, and duplication of efforts etc. There are many little initiatives aimed at cost cutting. We are extremely cost conscious, and we try to increase efficiency as a means of saving costs. For example, we carry out live chats and virtual meetings where possible which allows for savings both in terms of time and costs.
What is the impact of technology on the staff per branch at Seylan?
Right now, we are operating at an optimum capacity at staff per branch. What we are looking at is creating greater efficiency within the branches. We do not have a large work force as our competition. Our strategy is to increase efficiency and sales orientation. We have a healthy mix of human touch and technology at Seylan Bank.
Technology acceptance outside Colombo or the Western Province?
In fact, the level of technology usage, from my experience, is quite strong outside Colombo. Our growing markets in terms of many of our products are out of Colombo. For example, the majority of the online usage of some of our cards comes from outstation, which is a very interesting insight. In fact, we have noticed that the take up of technology has been very successful in the North and East. The growth in penetration of technology is far higher outside Colombo possibly because of the base effect, and also perhaps the brand appeal of Seylan is stronger outside Colombo.
What is Seylan’s digital strategy in the current banking context?
We have a comprehensive digital road map that has been put together. There is an exciting service line up, which is timed to perfection. The initiatives are set to be rolled out in 2019. This process requires a lot of patience and commitment to get the formulae right for our customers. Although we have been a somewhat late entrant to the technology aspect of banking, technology has always been part of our bank, and we are now geared up to take our technology to the next level which is both meaningful in terms of convenience to the customer and creating greater efficiencies for the bank and its stakeholders.
Our focus is not to reduce the customer foot fall at branches through our digital strategy. What we look for is value addition to our customers in the form of availability 24/7, 365 days, and a seamless service from the counter, to the ATM to the Kiosk and connectivity over our website and on social media. Internally, the digital road map is aimed at creating greater freedom and flexibility to concentrate on service delivery and business development. In other words, we would like, through our digitization processes to offload a rather mundane, standard task such as handling a withdrawal ticket to a machine, and instead use that time to provide a more meaningful solution to the customer.
Although, as I mentioned earlier, we are a late entrant to the digitization process, but this allows us to embrace the latest technology available. We are making solid progress and are challenging our competition. Smaller teams and the empowerment of making decisions at each level are our key to success.
Although I do not know at the moment to predict how much digitization actually helps loan and deposit growth, what can be presumed with confidence is that the engagement with the bank is much greater, creating a greater loyalty to the brand.
How does Seylan ensure asset quality in this context of technology-driven banking?
We have very stringent processes in place as well as centralized decision-making to ensure that the asset quality is not compromised in anyway. The key here is the knowhow in sourcing the right customer and the collection process. While we are challenged by fluctuating economic conditions, we are good at sourcing the right quality of customers.
We are a brand that has been challenged in the past and we have come out of it strongly and successfully. We have consolidated our position in the industry and one of the main reasons for our success over the years, as I have mentioned earlier is the team dynamism and the empowerment given to each level to make decisions. While we have come a long way, many exciting things are in store for our customers, particularly on the digitization front in the near future. bmd