Now, engineers find a new recruiter in private sector banks

Engineers are in great demand in banks if the current trend in recruitment in large private lenders is anything to go by.

ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra, Yes Bank have all stepped up hiring of trained engineers from premier institutes such as the IITs in the last two years, to handle digital banking operations, a growing area of business for lenders. Earlier, private banks hardly recruited engineers for operations.

With private banks and most state-run banks offering a majority of their services via internet and mobile banking these days, fresh engineering graduates from computer science and electronics streams are being hired.

“We recently hired 20 young engineers from IIT Delhi, Bombay, Madras and BITS Pilani to work in digital banking and business analytics. This is likely to grow,” TK Srirang, HR head, ICICI Bank, told HT.

The country’s largest private lender has been hiring from premier engineering institutes since last year. This year, it recruited 270 students from such institutes. Managing director Chanda Kochhar recently said the bank is targeting total transactions worth Rs 80,000 crore through mobile banking by March end. Digital banking helps cuts operational costs.

The country’s fourth-largest private lender, Kotak Mahindra Bank, has hired over 330 students from all campuses so far. The bank has also been strengthening its digital banking team, which has over 150 people already.

“There is more hiring for digital banking roles for the past 2-3 years. We are hiring more aggressively this year after our integration with ING Vysya bank…Our focus is to look for special, out-of-box thinking to meet digital market challenges. So, we are going to institutes such as IITs and even to the National Institute of Interior Designing and National Industrial Training Institute,” said Makarand Khatavkar, group HR head for Kotak Bank.

HDFC Bank, India’s second-largest private bank, too, has been hiring from IITs for its digital team. The bank did not respond to HT’s requests for comments.

While the extent of hiring is not on the scale as that of e-commerce firms, it has been slowly increasing over the past two years, according to placement coordinators.

On an average, private banks hire 100 to 300 students from campuses, including B-schools, across all departments, annually. Shubham Prajapati, co-ordinator of the placement cell at IIT Delhi said: “A number of top private banks have been hiring for technology related profiles for the past 2-3 years. Overall, 60-70 students were recruited this year by 15 banks that came for placements.”

“Generally banks recruited for analytical skills, but of late they are also recruiting for digital analytics and technology roles,” said Atul Shukla, placement manager, IIT Bombay. “Largely, computer science and electrical field candidates had opted for such roles. Of the 15-top private banks that visited our campus this year, about 5-6 banks hired 30 students for these job profiles. Around 80-100 students would be placed in banks.”

Newer lenders such as Yes Bank are also building their digital banking teams. Yes Bank, which currently has a digital banking team of 30, is looking to expand.