Covid-19 Impact, Challenges & New Opportunities For BFSI

COVID-19 outbreak came at a time when India’s economy was already slowing due to persistent financial sector weaknesses. Banking Frontiers carried out a 4 part-study on this topic and sought to understand (i) Impact on economy & business (ii) Challenges (iii) Strategies & initiatives adopted by the companies to compete with COVID-19 (iv)Adoption of digital products and services. The findings are narrated in 4 different articles:

- Mehul Dani and Ravi

Part 1: COVID affects business & operations of financial companies

The pandemic has a major impact on the economy and business of the BFSI companies:

Banking and financial institutions were under immense pressure to ensure business-as-usual amidst the lockdown and health crisis. The operational and technical challenges for both the customers and employees highlighted a lacuna and the general lack of agility in our banking systems when faced with an emergency. In the current scenario, the key challenge for the companies is to balance employee’s health, safety and customer expectations.

IMPACT OF COV1D-19

The impact of the pandemic is felt across industry sectors. Banking is an essential service and Fino Payments Bank always maintained itself as a responsible banker. Shailesh Pandey, chief sales & distribution head at the bank, says in spite of the lockdown the bank’s teams on the field, branches, regional offices and corporate office are working in tandem to make services available seamlessly. “All the office staff, including finance and IT, are working from home adhering to the government directive,” he adds.

With business and economy coming to a standstill, thousands of migrants - mostly daily wage-earning workers have been rendered jobless. This has a large bearing on the domestic remittance business. Shailesh Pandey gives details about the dip in the bank’s remittance business: “We have seen a dip of up to 80% in our remittance business. However, we are seeing an uptick in early April. Our objective is to have all the 200,000 banking outlets open, and given the current situation at some places, we have to adhere to the local conditions and operate at 50% capacity.”