Banker as Covid warrior

After demonetisation, Covid-19 is giving a big push to digital banking

Baskar Babu Ramachandran, managing director and CEO of Suryoday Small Finance Bank Ltd, says at least 100,000 microfinance borrowers of his bank paid their loan instalments through digital channels in May. His bank has around 1.3 million such customers.

Loans have always been disbursed digitally but when it comes to repayment of loan instalments or collection, as opposed to disbursement by the bank, each and every borrower of Suryoday SFB has paid in cash till March this year. In April, a few thousand customers used the digital channel as they were confined to their homes because of the lockdown. In