HDFC: India’s largest housing finance firm's transformation

Like many businesses in the post-pandemic world, India’s largest housing finance firm – Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) – is looking to become more agile, efficient and customer-centric, as it looks to drive business growth.

And to achieve that, the 28-year-old firm, credited with being a pioneer of retail housing finance is investing in digital transformation, leveraging the digital and cloud expertise of professional services firm Accenture.

Renu Sud Karnad, Managing Director of HDFC points to the ongoing market disruption in the mortgage as a motivating factor in creating a “digital-led reinvention of customer experiences”, something he believes will be pivotal to driving future growth and building a future-proof business model.

To achieve this next frontier of customer-centric innovation, Accenture is leveraging cloud-native applications, machine learning, automation and advanced analytics to digitalise HDFC’s lending process from beginning to end.

The transformation takes a cloud-first approach, essential for enterprise reinvention, with digital workflows for every step of the customer journey including application, loan processing, credit underwriting and decisioning, disbursement and loan servicing.

It leverages a machine learning-based decision engine aimed at improving risk mitigation and driving agility by standardising the credit underwriting process.

HDFC embraces leading-edge technology to drive digital transformation

The platform includes a user-friendly mobile application and web-based portal for customers. Developed using human-centric design principles, the intuitive mobile application and web portal will enable digital-native experiences and significantly reduce the time taken for customer onboarding. They will also offer customers real-time visibility into their home loan application status and other related service requests anytime, anywhere.

In addition, a mobile application with a specially designed, gamified user experience will help HDFC’s large sales field force and channel partners track business leads and service customers in real time.

“We believe that embracing leading-edge technologies to develop user-centric systems and a robust technology backbone is an essential element of our transformation journey,” Abhijit Singh, chief information and technology officer, HDFC. “A data-driven organisational culture and digitally-enabled workplace experiences that empower our people are equally important.”