HDFC Bank

According to Anand Narayan, vice president of information technology at HDFC Bank, the financial institution has "prioritized its engagement in IT and the Internet as one of its key goals and has already made significant progress in Web-enabling its core businesses.

A major initiative the bank undertook in 2005 was the automation of pledge creation and withdrawal for securities in exchange for bank loans. When the bank provides such Loans Against Securities (LAS), it typically accepts shares held by the borrower in a depository account, through a process known as pledge creation. Upon the return of the loan, the bank withdraws the pledge and the shares are then made available to the borrower for further pledge or sale.

With the introduction of the LAS system, significant improvement was observed in the bank's processing. With the reduction in manual data entry, manpower cost was reduced substantially, and resources could be channeled to other areas in the organization. The system validation capabilities also meant that human errors in form checking and processing were minimized.

"While this project does not have a direct customer impact, it has resulted in much improved operational efficiency," noted Anand. "By eliminating multiple data entry in various systems, it has greatly reduced operational risk, which is one of the focus areas in the light of the implementation of Basel II."

To complement IT initiatives, the bank also changes its offline processes accordingly. In the case of the LAS processing system, the request form was redesigned to allow the form to be read more accurately.

For the current year, the bank will continue to upgrade its technology, including enhancing the robustness of its disaster recovery and business continuity plans.