YONO biggest start-up by legacy bank, valuation at $40 billion: SBI chairman

Digital banking platform of State Bank of India, YONO app's valuation has increased to $40 billion, according to SBI Chairman Rajnish Kumar. SBI launched the You Only Need One (YONO) app in November 2017 to help its customers digitally for banking, investment and shopping needs.

Speaking at an event, Chairman Kumar said that, "No one gets to know YONO's valuation because it sits within the bank.  If it was sitting outside banks, its valuation would be $40-50 billion".

Kumar, whose three-year term as the chairman comes to an end next month, asserted that YONO is the biggest start-up by a legacy bank. Kumar added that SBI is adding over 70,000 customers per day to the platform, and has added 2.7 crore users in the last six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kumar also spoke about how the country's largest lender was active in working with several start-ups that were equipped in areas like cybersecurity and fraud prevention. The 62-year-old chairman said SBI's board has approved a spending limit of Rs 10 crore for the management to work directly with start-ups.

The bank is also working on creating a business-to-business (B2B) platform for bill receivables, called 'Bharat Draft', which will have all the MSMEs registered, he said.

Recently, SBI proposed to hire 14,000 employees this year. It also announced a voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) for which nearly 30,190 SBI staff are eligible.

Also read: SBI to hire 14,000 employees; dismisses claims of job cuts through VRS

Also read: SBI VRS scheme 2020: Check out eligibility, compensation, other details