Banking Sector In India Is A Key Growth Driver For Us: Oracle India Official

Even as technology spending in banking space is dropping globally, growth in the Indian banking sector is robust and a key growth driver for Oracle cloud business in India, said a top Oracle India official.

Speaking to Moneycontrol, Mitesh Agarwal, Vice President Sales – Global key and lead accounts, Oracle India, said banking and financial services is one of the largest and key business vertical for the company’s cloud business. “We are working with top 10 banks in India on their digital plans. Unlike global scenario where investments from banking clients are coming down, India’s case is just opposite,” Agarwal said.

The onus lies to major headwinds facing the banking sector in India such as non-performing assets (NPAs) and lack of capital and subsequently its growth.

Agarwal feels the banking sector can overcome challenges by investing in technology.

“It is not like banks do not keep track of defaulters. The problem is that the data is stored somewhere in the database and the bank’s chief risk officer never got to know about it. Because they were waiting for someone in IT to send them a report and when it did it was in huge volumes,” Agarwal said.

This is where technology comes into play. By investing in cloud infrastructure and using the latest tools that come with it, banks can generate any data they desire, including NPAs.

“If you want NPAs, it will show you NPA. If a company has defaulted in a city and is trying to open a fresh account at a different place, earlier the bank will not find out. Now with new tools, they can correlate and take quicker decisions,” Agarwal explained.

This can be done in for as less as $25,000-$30,000 and within days instead of years like before, he added. That is why the banking sector will continue to offer larger business opportunity for the company.

After banking, telecommunications and public sectors are where the company is seeing growth.

“In the telecom sector, there has been consolidation. But the pace of growth in the sector is pretty high,” he said.

But the issue is that despite the larger user base, average revenue per use is less. In India average revenue per user is less than $2 whereas it is $10-12 in the US.

“If you look at where these telecom companies are wanting to invest and innovate, it would be the enterprise side, especially small and medium businesses,” he said.

The telcos are partnering with players like Oracle to provide digital platform, data centres and tools for business management solutions to get their business in order. “We see a huge opportunity here and this relatively new in India,” he added.

Next big opportunities from public sector enterprises. Agarwal said: “There are strong IT initiatives from the government, which is driving the growth in this space.”

Oracle partnered with government think-tank NITI Aayog to develop a blockchain ecosystem to weed out fake drugs in the market last year. The company is also working on smart city projects, many of them have gone in to executive.―Money Control