State Bank of India's (SBI) new chairman C S Setty on Friday said the country's largest lender will not engage in an interest rate war to attract deposits. He said the bank will bet on its customer service and wide network to boost deposit growth. However, Setty said the country's largest bank will not engage in an interest rate war to attract deposits. Speaking at the annual GFF (Global Fintech Fest), Setty, who took over on Wednesday, said competition on deposits is expected to continue for some time.

SBI will launch YONO 2.0

According to the news, Setty said the bank is targeting a loan growth of 14-16 per cent in FY25, and can easily sustain it with deposit growth of 8-10 per cent given the high base of its liabilities. Setty said he plans to build on the bank's strengths, as its balance sheet is strong. The bank aims to launch the much-awaited YONO 2.0 offering in a closed user group in November and then launch it widely for all. The bank is aiming to get 90 per cent of its retail unsecured loans from digital channels, he said, adding that it has so far disbursed ₹1.3 trillion of personal loans through the YONO app.

Three new offers launched

Setty on Friday launched three new offerings to improve commuting experience across India, including MTS RuPay NCMC prepaid card offline payment solution and One View mobile app and advanced design for SBI FASTag. Meanwhile, speaking at the same event, Axis Bank chief executive and managing director Amitabh Chaudhry said the highly acclaimed zero balance accounts are yet to reach a scale at the system level. Rising incidents of fraud have made people anxious about carrying out banking transactions.

Chaudhry said that very soon the bank will launch a service on its mobile app where customers of other banks will be able to transact instead of just viewing account details like today. He said the bank is currently running a total of 15 pilots on artificial intelligence and machine learning. He said one of these areas would be human resources, where technology would help the bank view resumes to make recruitment easier.