SBI Looking To Make Yono A Separate Entity

The State Bank of India (SBI) is actively looking to hive off its digital platform Yono into a separate subsidiary, said the public sector bank's chairman Rajnish Kumar at an annual banking and finance conference - Sibos 2020.

Yono or You Only Need One App is the lender's integrated banking platform.

"We are in discussions with all our partners to hive it (Yono) off as a separate subsidiary," Kumar said.

After Yono becomes an independent entity, SBI could even become one among its users, he said adding that discussions were at a very nascent stage and a valuation exercise for the entity was pending.

Referring to his recent statement that Yono's valuation could be around $40 billion, Kumar clarified saying "if I look at valuations of all start-ups and compare, then definitely Yono should not be less than $40 billion. As of now, we have not done any valuation exercise but that is what I believe is the potential."

Launched three years ago, Yono has 26 million registered users. It witnesses 5.5 million logins per day along with over 4,000 daily disbursals of personal loans and 16,000 Yono Krishi Agri Gold loans.

Kumar further said SBI is also considering setting up a digital payments entity under the New Umbrella Entity (NUE) framework for retail payments.

In August this year, the RBI had released a framework for authorisation of a pan-India umbrella entity for retail payments. The last date for submitting the application for the same to the RBI is 26 February 2021.

At present, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is the only retail payment entity in the country.

"We are very seriously considering it. SBI can naturally lead the process by virtue of being the largest player in the payment space in the country. We are actively devoting our time and attention and will be in a position to take a firm view within the next few months but well before February 2021, which is the last date for applying to RBI," Kumar said.