New Delhi: State Bank of India, along with its subsidiary SBI Payments Services, is moving ahead with a full-scale modernisation of its core-banking infrastructure and expects the transformation to be completed within two years. The update was shared by Managing Director (corporate banking & subsidiaries) Ashwini Kumar Tewari during the Singapore FinTech Festival.

Tewari detailed the bank’s strategy to shift from its legacy architecture to a more flexible and scalable system through a mix of hollowisation, microservices, modernisation and externalisation. He said the bank is following a four-axis plan that involves upgrading hardware, moving from Unix to Linux, externalising functions such as vendor and government payments, and deploying microservices for processes including inquiries and accounting. These steps are aimed at reshaping the bank’s technology core to support faster operations and larger transaction volumes.

He added that SBI is simultaneously building a private cloud infrastructure to ensure long-term scalability while meeting regulatory and security requirements. “We are modernising as we run the ship. Our systems must always remain on and available to customers,” he said, highlighting the bank’s priority of uninterrupted service.

Tewari also spoke about SBI’s changing engagement with the fintech ecosystem. He said the relationship has shifted from competition to collaboration, with the bank creating a sandbox and innovation hub that gives fintech firms access to nearly 300 APIs. This allows them to test and integrate their solutions directly with SBI’s platforms.

He noted that while agility, convenience and strong interfaces are important for onboarding fintech partners, security, compliance and the ability to handle SBI’s scale remain essential requirements.

BI Bureau