YONO SBI’s Start-Up
India’s largest bank, State Bank of India (SBI), pulled out YONO — an acronym for ‘You Only Need One’ — app out of its hat five years ago. No one had expected the state-owned bank to take a lead in rolling out a super app for banking, investments and e-commerce. However, in just three years, YONO has notched up impressive numbers — 3.70 crore registrations, ₹21,000 crore-plus loans, 77,671-plus daily cardless transactions and leads for ₹10,000 crore home and car loans. The claimed valuation of ₹2.94-3.67 lakh crore is more than SBI’s ₹3.25 lakh crore market cap. Though there has been no formal valuation, the number has been derived on the basis of lending book, banking transactions, profitability and potential. Many fintechs are valued at billion dollars-plus despite their much smaller loan books and far fewer payment transactions.
The size and scale of SBI puts YONO, an extension of the bank, on a pedestal. But its valuation is not as easy as it seems because of complexities of running a traditional bank and uncertainty about the future business model. Let us deep-dive into factors that will influence SBI YO-NO’s valuation.
Reincarnation As Startup
SBI YONO is reimagining banking to thwart disruption by fintechs, which are gradually eating banks’ lunch. A
