S02E06: The one with Anand Bhatia (Fino Payments Bank)
Welcome to The Digital Couch Season II where we publish another conversation featuring leading global thinkers from the world of business, management, and marketing. Who all are coming for Season II? Discover unbiased, actionable, and in-depth stories from growth-minded people on the podcast every week.
In our sixth episode of the second season, Vijayant Dhaka (ValueFirst) hosts Anand Bhatia (Fino Payments Bank). Anand is a post-graduate from IIM Lucknow, a civil engineer from SPCE, Mumbai, and Chief Marketing Officer at Fino Payments Bank. He has worked with Citi Group for almost a decade and delivered results across Sales and Distribution, Marketing, and Product Management. Anand is a marathoner, having completed 4 ultra-marathons. Helps him think!!
Our guest sat down on The Digital Couch to talk about banking, customer experience, COVID-19, and more.
“An interesting tale..."
Anand takes a stroll down memory lane sharing his experiences of how he joined Fino Payments Bank after his stint in the retail, banking, and education sector. From co-founding Ormax Money, stepping into an entrepreneurial role, becoming CMO at Fino Bank that brewed over a cup of tea to learning and unlearning things, Anand has a lot to spill.
“Consumer needs a bit of hand-holding"
Anand enlightens us with the term Phygital Banking and the assisted digital model. He feels that every customer needs some kind of handholding to overcome the barrier and gain confidence in different process of banking. From Kirana stores, stationery shops, to even small kiosks or money transfer, enrollment for insurance to opening an account, discover how Phygital provides ease of usage to customers.
“Covid started having a very different meaning for us at the bank"
With the pandemic looming over us, banks have had a hard time being flooded with calls, social media mentions, emails about a bunch of things. Anand considers this period as Creating Opportunities in the Virus-Infected Days (COVID). Leveraging developments such as marketing automation and chatbots at this time is a great opportunity to transform and change the working mindset. From turning around the complaints and interactions quickly, gaining higher engagement, instant adoption of technology by customers, to bringing financial services to the doorstep, Anand has a lot of engrossing stories to share only on The Digital Couch.
“The right marketing is really about storytelling"
With digital platforms being invested in so much, Anand feels that consumers will always respond to a story and marketing will make the brand desirable to the consumer. It allows brands to experiment and try so many different things that are incredibly actionable. Furthermore, with so many digital platforms, the more accessible you are the more the customer will always believe that he/she is getting better service.
Anand has been in the business of – Seeing what everybody sees, hearing what everyone hears but thinking through what others do not. This has been his mantra. Catch Anand Bhatia sharing his fascinating tales of learning and unlearning things, Phygital banking, excelling in the pandemic, leveraging digital platforms, and storytelling only on The Digital Couch.
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