HDFC, ICICI Bank, SBI, among top-10 lenders in 2020; Google Pay, PhonePe top wallets: Report

HDFC, ICICI Bank, SBI, Yes Bank, PNB and HSBC Bank emerged as the top-10 banks in 2020, while Google Pay and PhonePe were the top wallets among the customers, according to a report.

The BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance) Movers and Shakers 2020 report by Wizikey talks about the top-100 banks in India and emerging BFSI models such as wallets and UPI, Neobanks, non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), small finance banks and payments banks.

Beyond the banking counterparts, one of the most muted sectors, insurance, also saw a massive shift in gears this year considering their rise in popularity due to after-effects of the pandemic, according to the report by SaaS-based start-up Wizikey.

"HDFC, ICICI, SBI, Yes Bank, PNB, HSBC Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, Bank of Baroda, Deutsche Bank and IDBI are the top-10 banks of 2020," the report said.

It added that the year also saw UPI and wallets spring into high action as they found a new opportunity in making a dent with the customer. "In a locked down world, Google Pay emerged as the number one mover and shaker, followed by Phone Pe."

The three banks that transformed themselves almost overnight to serve the Indian consumer and have also trumped their newer counterparts including Axis and Kotak Mahindra Bank in both quantity and quality of news are ICICI, HDFC, and SBI, it said.

WhatsApp launched its payment services but it stayed behind other players, while neo banks was another category that witnessed a lot of buzz in the year riding the trend, owing to the digitisation that has been under progress for years.

"YONO emerged as the number one, followed by Niyo and Kotak 811 at ranks 2 and 3 respectively in the category," it said.

Among others, NBFCs played a critical role this year, emerging as the primary source of capital for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), it said.

In a COVID-19 world, banks have been lending more to NBFCs, increasing their overall exposure to them.

Dewan Housing Finance Corporation at an overall rank of 15, topped the sectoral rank at Number 1. With small finance banks like Ujjivan Small Finance Bank and Equitas Small Finance Bank seeing a lot of visibility, this category was also fortunate to develop the latest tech stacks to make their offerings at par with fintechs and competing with start-ups too, according to the report.

Wizikey co-founder and CEO Anshul Sushil said, "The BFSI segment of India, one of the cornerstones of our economy, saw a major upheaval in the 2020. While the banking sector witnessed immense crisis, it also paved the way for the emergence of new and disruptive models in the sector."

He added that additionally, a slew of innovative services that the payment and lending solutions space saw have created new benchmarks for India on a global scale.

By leveraging big data technologies such as predictive analytics and machine learning, Wizikey analyses millions of news data points that help the company create meaningful and important data points for various brands, he said.

On the reporting methodology, the company has used its AI and ML technology, data mining and analysis within start-ups and unicorns in the ecosystem. A total of 5 million news articles crawled over the year, and have been used for analysis in this report, it added.