From the passbook printer to the pledge counter

Mandate

Make gold-loan decisions understandable to borrowers in their own languages and stop work that adds risk without serving them.

Outcomes

• Added holds and branch call-backs to risky app top-ups; scam complaints fell from 212 to 17 over comparable five-month periods
• Replaced a self-service first-loan journey with an assisted tablet flow; counter time fell from 41 to 29 minutes
• Moved pre-auction notices into three languages; auctions fell from 9,800 to 6,300 accounts a year
• Dropped twelve of 31 planned app items in the 2025 roadmap review

Decisions in context

The managing director created this role when product was separated from technology, partly because the board's IT strategy committee wanted one executive to answer for how customers experienced our digital and branch journeys. I lead five leads covering the branch tablet, the app, notices, research and analytics. I do not set credit policy, loan-to-value limits or auction decisions, and I do not run engineering. My work is to make those decisions legible and safe in the hands of a borrower, often one reading in Gujarati, Hindi or Marathi with a branch officer beside her. The three cases on this site all come from this period, and each one cost us volume, time or money that I had to explain to colleagues who disagreed. I present to the IT strategy committee twice a year and have reported to the audit and risk committees.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking a first independent directorship alongside it, with employer consent.

Mandate

Give a branch-only lender its first digital servicing channel without weakening branch relationships.

Outcomes

• Launched the customer app in 2019 for UPI interest payment and part-release booking
• Introduced online top-up in 2021, reaching about ₹60 crore a month by March 2022
• Launched the self-service first-loan journey later stopped in 2023
• Moved interest-payment receipts from paper to SMS in three languages

Decisions in context

I joined a company with more than three hundred branches and no app. The chief operating officer wanted digital servicing to reduce queues for interest payments, not to replace branches, and that framing helped. We launched the app in 2019 with two jobs: paying interest through UPI and booking a part-release so that the gold would be ready at the branch. Usage grew quickly during the 2020 lockdowns, when branches worked shorter hours. Online top-up followed in 2021. I also championed a self-service journey for first-time borrowers, which I describe on the Impact page because I later recommended stopping it. My team was small, and engineering sat with the technology head, so I learnt to write requirements that a separate team could build without guessing. The period gave me product ownership in a regulated lender rather than a payments business.

Reason for the move

Appointed chief product officer when product was separated from technology.

Mandate

Make collections by distributors' salespeople from small shops quick, receipted and reconcilable.

Outcomes

• Added UPI collection with instant receipts for salespeople in 2017
• Built a dispute flow that reduced unreconciled collections from 4.1% to 1.3%
• Introduced Hindi and Gujarati receipts for shopkeepers

Decisions in context

Tijorikhata sold an app to distributors whose salespeople collected cash and cheques from kirana shops. My product covered the receipt, the dispute and the reconciliation that told the distributor whether money had really arrived. When UPI spread after 2016, the speed of payment improved immediately, but reconciliation lagged, and shopkeepers began to dispute receipts they could not match to a bank credit. I worked with operations to show the shopkeeper and the distributor the same reference, and to let either raise a dispute that named the payment rather than the salesperson. I managed a team of seven under the vice-president, product. I learnt to separate the fast part of a financial product from the slow part that makes it trustworthy. I left because I wanted to work on lending, where a customer lives with a decision for months rather than seconds.

Reason for the move

Moved to lending to work on products where the customer's obligation lasts longer than a single payment.

Mandate

Replace paper collection sheets with a tablet that printed receipts at group meetings.

Outcomes

• Piloted the tablet in 48 branches, then extended it to 160
• Introduced printed receipts in Marathi and Kannada at each meeting
• Recorded proxy payments so that each borrower's own account remained accurate

Decisions in context

I joined two months before the crisis in Andhra Pradesh microfinance changed how lenders across India were judged. Our company did not operate there, but collection conduct became a standing question for our board and lenders. My work was the field officer's tablet. It printed a receipt at the meeting, showed the instalment in Marathi or Kannada and recorded when one member paid for another, which paper sheets had blurred. I spent many mornings at group meetings watching officers use it. The product helped borrowers see what had been recorded, but it could not prevent pressure from an officer with a difficult quota. That needed supervision, incentive design and a complaints line, which operations leaders built. I completed a weekend management diploma during this period. I learnt that a product shapes conduct, but cannot carry responsibility for it alone.

Reason for the move

Moved to payments to own a product with daily transaction volume and a commercial model.

Mandate

Build and later specify lending modules that loan officers could use without parallel paper registers.

Outcomes

• Specified a sanction-terms screen that recorded what a member had been told
• Reduced reliance on parallel registers in the pilot banks
• Wrote user guides for loan officers in Marathi and Gujarati

Decisions in context

Patrakshar sold lending software to cooperative banks and credit societies. I started as an engineer and became a business analyst in 2008, which meant visiting client branches and watching loan officers work. Several kept paper registers next to our system. At first my colleagues saw that as reluctance to change. When I read the registers, I found they recorded what a member had been told at sanction: the instalment, the guarantor's role, the date of the first payment. Our screens held the numbers but not the conversation. I specified a sanction-terms record and a printed summary for the member, which reduced the parallel registers in the pilot banks. I had no direct reports and worked under the delivery manager for lending modules. The role taught me that the workarounds people build around a product are often its most honest specification.

Reason for the move

Moved closer to borrowers by joining a lender instead of a software vendor.

Mandate

Maintain and extend teller and passbook printing software for cooperative bank branches.

Outcomes

• Rewrote passbook printing to show running balances clearly
• Added Gujarati narration to passbook entries for two client banks
• Supported branch go-lives in six towns

Decisions in context

My first job was writing and maintaining teller software for cooperative bank branches in Gujarat. I spent much of my time at go-lives, where clerks tested whatever we had changed against their own long memory of each depositor's account. The most useful lesson came from passbook printing. When an entry confused a customer, she turned to the clerk, and the clerk turned the monitor so that they could read it together. I rewrote the printing so that running balances were clearer and, for two client banks, added Gujarati narration to each entry. I was one of five programmers and reported to the project lead for teller systems. I had no authority over the banks' procedures. I left after three years because I wanted to understand lending rather than deposits, and Pune offered a larger vendor with lending modules in active development.

Reason for the move

Moved to Pune to work on lending software for a larger vendor.