State Bank of India seems to be setting great store by start-ups in the financial technology (FinTech) space. After starting an exclusive branch for start-ups in Bengaluru earlier this year, it has set up a Rs. 200-crore fund to provide assistance to them.

SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said the ‘IT Innovation Start-up Fund’ will consider assistance of up to Rs. 3 crore to any Indian-registered company operating in the area of banking and related technology.

Recently, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, among others, organised start-up contests to spot the best innovators in the FinTech space and adopt their technology.

Speaking at the CII Banking Tech Summit, Bhattacharya said a mentoring team has been formed to assist start-ups. It will support, monitor and report on the progress and the utilisation of funds by the venture. She observed that with the emergence of technology, banks are facing two challenges: managing their technology legacy stack and bringing costs down for small transactions.

Banks today need to cross-sell in collaboration with FinTech companies as they are here to stay, said the SBI Chairman.

The new-age customer lives in the ‘GAFAA’ — an acronym for Google, Apple, Facebook, Android and Amazon — realm, which has increased penetration of services through smartphones, she added.

Source: Business Line