Redefining human experience, the digital way has been our constant goal for a while now. Our digital innovations of today are on the cusp of redefining the banking paradigm of tomorrow. We are and shall continue to look ahead, adapt and transform for our motto of ‘Digital at the fore and Human at the core'.
Thank you! And I sincerely hope this finds you safe and well!
It is my pleasure to share with you our Annual Report for FY 2020-21, a milestone year for the Bank in more ways than one.
A year back nobody knew how radically the world would change due to the pandemic and would trigger a sharp recession creating unprecedented challenges for individuals and society at large. Our report documents how our franchise responded to these testing times, on all fronts. In these challenging times, our eagerness to adapt and innovate has placed us in a strong position.
I had indicated last year that Simple, Digital, and Contactless would be the three guiding themes for FY 2020-21. I am happy to share that, we could navigate extreme volatility and successfully scale up our customer connect as we transitioned to a contactless mode, quite seamlessly, courtesy our alert and agile digital framework.
Our team worked across service lines to ensure that our clients’ supply chains remain intact, their liquidity is well managed, and guided them through several government stimulus packages. Now, we are trying to help them innovate for opportunities ahead, beyond the pandemic. We are helping them realise that beyond this upheaval, lies a future of limitless possibilities.
Last year I had referred to the pandemic, as a Tsunami Plus, it turns out to be one for long too. As you read this message, our country thankfully and hopefully will be at the ebb of the second wave. Nevertheless, even in this mammoth crisis, your Bank continued to remain an island of calm with our consistency, which is a reflection of our well-constructed risk architecture. For us, this is the true face of responsible growth as we successfully translated insights into collective action.
Our performance of FY 2020-21 was built on the bedrock of a solid foundation established by focussing on digital for the past decade. Our leading-edge digital capabilities make us a sought-after Bank in the neo-banking space. Launch of digital products and digital marketing initiatives marked a strategic leap for the Bank to capitalise on the new realities more effectively, translating into 86% share of digital transactions.
This year we went live with Feddy, an AIpowered virtual assistant and further integrated it into Google Business Messaging, a first-ofits-kind feat by any Indian Bank. We introduced Fed-e-Studio, a fully digital self-service kiosk, to aid our clients with contactless transactional services. To ensure social distancing in branches, we developed FedSwagat, for customers to pre-book their visits. Federal 24 7, an online account opening service that utilises VAO (video account opening), was also launched to remotely open a savings account. Our continuous monitoring of the emerging technologies, changing customer preferences and data footprint helped us to forge partnerships with FinTechs. We also leverage the strength of these partnerships to drive our vision. Tie-ups with the epiFi and Digivriddhi are two examples of this.
Our strategy and commitment to grow a secured credit portfolio, to pursue quality over quantity while ensuring our liabilities continue to be organic and granular helped us deliver on our capital conservation theme. We had to make some difficult choices that were necessary to realise our ambition as we commit to accelerating progress towards the goal of being the Most Admired Bank.
Let me now share with you some of the key operational financial highlights that made FY 2020-21 one of the stronger years for the Bank despite the challenging macro environment. Notwithstanding the headwinds, we could deliver most of the targets and ambitious goals that we had set for ourselves for FY 2020-21. Q4 of the FY saw the Bank record its highest ever Quarterly Net Profit of ₹477.81 Crore. Here are some of the other highlights:
For us, the safety and wellbeing of our employees is of paramount importance. During the pandemic, we had swiftly invoked travel restrictions and put in place comprehensive set of guidelines around meetings, events, to aid a safe return to offices eventually. Probably, this underscored credential of being an employee-friendly organisation got us the tag of being a Great Place to Work® this year. Also, despite the disruption caused by COVID-19, this year, we welcomed 556 new colleagues and inducted them digitally.
As far as awards and recognitions are concerned, the year turned out to be an abundantly rich one. Needless to say, these have spurred us to further raise the standards of our performance. Among the major awards we won during the year for our overall performance were:
Among other recognitions were ‘IBA’s 16th annual technology awards’, Skoch awards, all of which encourage us to pursue excellence with additional rigour.
To support the community around us, especially the ones battling the pandemic, on World Health Day, we embarked on India’s biggest vaccine promotion drive, ‘Sanjeevani – A Shot of Life,’ which is currently addressing vaccine hesitancy and all the myths or misconceptions that surround it. We also joined hands with the National Health Mission to set up a special COVID facility in Aluva government district hospital. This is just a highlight of the various infrastructure, logistic and awareness programmes that we are doing around the country to combat the pandemic and ensure quality healthcare facility.
Redefining human experience, the digital way has been our constant goal for a while now. Our digital innovations of today are on the cusp of redefining the banking paradigm of tomorrow. We are and shall continue to look ahead, adapt and transform for our motto of ‘Digital at the fore and Human at the core’.
We quite optimistically believe that we will emerge stronger having overcome many challenges when we get to the other side of this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic! But our values, culture of compassion and purpose of becoming the ‘Most Admired Bank’ will remain our signpost. We will also continue to efficiently allocate our attention towards ‘Presence to Prominence’ and ‘Prominence to Dominance’ across geographies even for this FY.
While we broaden our horizons and accelerate progress, we will focus on reaching India’s underbanked and underserved with our neo-banking partnerships and a purpose of ‘inclusive finance’. We are constantly innovating and deploying unique differentiators in our endeavour to transform small businesses across the country. The stakes are high for small businesses in India as they are the future and make up most of the industrial fabric in our country. We are co-creating digital enablers for these businesses, to make them more sustainable and efficient. Our renewed commitment to democratise financial services using hybrid digital instruments for small businesses and deeper geographies will narrow the digital gap and deliver tangible results soon. The right digital model of reaching and enriching the underserved will surely catapult us as ‘The Perfect Banking Partner’ for these entities. Along with these, we will continue to address pressing issues such as environmental sustainability and economic inequality, and these will be the crux of our governance goals going ahead.
The banking brethren, to my understanding, will massively harness technology to serve the society better. But while we nurture this digitally powered society, it is imperative that Humans remain at the core to accentuate the impact and cultivate mindfulness. Hence, the Future of Digital is Human! Who knows, in the future we might even find Simulated Neural Networks, AI and IoT as anecdotes in the history of ‘Human-based-Digital’.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all our eminent Board Members for guiding and supporting us through these testing times. Their staunch support has enabled us to deliver a robust performance in an exceptionally tough macro environment. Additionally,I extend my big thanks to the Team and all our stakeholders for their consistent support, trust and patronage.
I remain “Proud to be a Federal.”
With best wishes,