The country's largest lender State Bank of India is working towards launching the next version of its digital lending platform Yono (You Only Need One App), chairman Dinesh Khara said. Speaking at a banking event organised by industry body IMC, Khara said when the bank initially started Yono, it was thought of as a distribution platform for the retail segment products.

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"During the course of the journey, SBI could realise Yono's potential for international operations, particularly where we have the retail operations. We could visualise its relevance for Yono business also, and now we have started leveraging it for our agriculture segment, he said. Now what we are thinking of is as to how to integrate all these fragmented pieces of Yono and think in terms of something like Yono 2, which is the next version of it. It is something which we are working on and will come out with it and products soon, Khara said.

As of March 31, 2021, Yono has over 7.96 crore downloads and about 3.71 crore registrations, according to the bank's annual report for 2020-2021. The bank has onboarded 40,000 overseas customers on the Yono platform as of end-March 2021, it said. The lender is on course to launch Yono in Singapore, Bahrain, South Africa, and the USA by the end of the financial year 2021-22.

Khara further said that SBI looks at technology from the point of view of having oversight on its operations. The bank has started leveraging analytics for profiling the customers and to reach out to customers. It is also leveraging analytics for management and mitigation of risks.

Speaking at the event, Yes Bank's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Prashant Kumar said this is a time where banks need alliances and relationships with technology. It is a time to ride on the core competence of partners to create solutions and collaborations, he said.