Editor’s Note
SBI aims to double its YONO app users to 200 million, seeking to migrate transactions to a platform that operates at a fraction of traditional branch costs.
State Bank of India (SBI) has planned to double its YONO digital banking application users to 20 crore. This plan aims to shift more transactions to the platform at one-tenth the cost of branch banking.
State Bank of India (SBI) will recruit 6,500 people by the next year, 2026. SBI has initiated a focused project to steer its branch-visiting customers towards low-cost digital banking channels. The bank launched version 2.0 of the YONO app on Monday, which comes eight years after the app was first launched in 2017.
SBI will hire a total of 10,000 people from its subsidiary SBI Payments Services Private Limited to help transfer its customers to the digital banking app. Currently, 3,500 people are engaged in this work.
On the occasion of the launch of the new version of YONO, SBI Chairman C.S. Shetty said the bank has started an initiative under which special executives in branches are helping customers adopt digital means.
He informed that this project is being operated by a subsidiary of the bank, and new employees are being recruited under this initiative. The bank’s chairman said that with the new ‘YONO 2.0’ version, SBI aims to challenge major payment platforms like Google Pay and PhonePe. He also stated that this edition, which works on mobile, tablet, and desktop, can also be used by customers of other banks.
Currently, out of SBI’s more than 50 crore customers, 9.60 crore customers are using YONO, and the bank’s target is to add 20 crore customers to this platform. Shetty said that this newly designed app enables the bank to add new customers at one-tenth the cost compared to before. He informed that the bank opens 70,000 accounts daily and now wants to do 90 percent of this work through YONO.
He said that all existing YONO users will be provided the new version in a phased manner, and within a set timeframe, all customers will transition to the new version without any disruption. Shetty also clarified that there is currently no plan to generate revenue from the YONO platform.
He said the bank has booked a digital loan book of ₹2 lakh crore, which it plans to expand through the new app.