In an increasing interest in the financial technology space, State Bank of India (SBI) announced a Rs 200 crore startup fund for using banking and related IT technology, reports Press Trust of India. SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said that the bank would give assistance of Rs 3 crore to Indian registered companies to develop innovations in the fintech space. She added that the bank has formed a mentoring team to assist these companies in terms of further financing, legal and technical aid. She added that the bank will be looking at cross selling their products through these companies. SBI joins a growing list of banks which are offering assistance to fintech companies: - Earlier in the week, foreign lender Barclays opened a fintech innovation centre in Mumbai called Rise. This is Barclays’ sixth Rise site globally, following the London, Manchester, New York, Cape Town and Tel Aviv hubs. - While HDFC Bank selected products from five fintech companies to be deployed in the bank as part of its Digital Innovation Summit. - In April, ICICI Bank hosted an ‘Appathon’ where the bank gave access to more than 200 APIs from the ICICI Group to developers to create products. Digital push In a recent interview, Bhattacharya said that the bank is aiming to push for 80% of their transactions to be on digital channels. This would entail that the bank pushing customers to give up cash and adopt transactions on Point of Sale machines. SBI became the top merchant acquiring bank for POS terminals in the country…
