PNB Housing Finance: Inside a multi-phase digital transformation

PNB Housing Finance is a deposit-taking housing finance company with a wide portfolio across retail and corporate customers. Its scale and regulatory environment require systems that can support high transaction volumes, consistent decision-making, secure operations, and fast customer response. Over the past few years, the organisation has undertaken a broad digital transformation to meet these needs while keeping day-to-day operations stable.

How the Transformation Began

The company started its digital overhaul about two and a half years ago. At the time, most of its core systems were built on a 2015–16 stack. They had supported growth for several years but could not meet the shift in customer behaviour that followed rapid digital adoption after COVID. Regulatory processes were also becoming technology-driven, making automation essential.

“We had to keep operations running while replacing the technology that supported our core business,” said Anubhav Rajput, Chief Information Officer.

The transformation plan was split into three phases. Phase 1 focused on systems linked to revenue: loan origination, loan management, collections, CRM, and the underwriting rules engine. Phase 2 addressed internal platforms across HR, legal, finance, marketing, and IT. Phase 3 focused on data analytics and AI, which required the earlier phases to be stable before being built on top.

Loan and Deposit Journeys: Moving to Digital

One of the largest shifts happened in the home loan journey. Today, roughly 87–88 percent of the loan process is digital, from initial research to disbursement. This includes lead creation, scoring, qualification, KYC, payments, agreement execution, and status tracking. The only physical components are property visits and document collection, which re-enter the digital flow once completed.

Rajput explained, “The loan onboarding journey runs on about 150–160 integrations. Credit scoring, KYC, payments, and other workflows connect through APIs.”

On the deposit side, public deposit customers can complete their journeys online. Brokers source deposits through a digital platform that connects directly to the core system.

Cloud Migration and Architectural Decisions

PNB Housing has moved about 80–85 percent of its workloads to the cloud. Systems with variable demand—such as loan processing, which sees month-end and quarter-end spikes—run on cloud-native architectures using microservices, Kubernetes, and serverless components. More stable systems, such as AML and ERP, continue on predictable capacity models.

A middleware platform standardises all integrations. SMS and payment gateways, for example, connect through a single API layer rather than direct links from each system. “The middleware manages multiple providers at the back end and shifts automatically if one fails,” Rajput said.

The company has also built a strong internal engineering team to improve speed to market and reduce dependency on external vendors.

Data and AI Foundations

The data lake, built on AWS, ingests operational and historical data using automated pipelines. Redshift is used as the central data warehouse, supported by a deduplication engine and quality modules. Business teams access insights through dashboards and messaging channels such as WhatsApp and SMS. Hourly performance updates help sales and collections teams adjust their daily actions.

AI and ML models are used to predict delinquency, customer behaviour, and communication preferences. Upcoming projects include document digitisation using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), generative-AI–based customer support, and agent-assist tools. “We are moving carefully so we avoid avoidable mistakes,” Rajput said.

Underwriting continues to run on a rule engine with an ML layer, ensuring transparent decisions with consistent risk control.

Strengthening Cybersecurity

The cybersecurity framework follows a security-by-design model. Layers cover physical, perimeter, web, application, data, and user controls. A zero-trust architecture verifies every device, user, and session. Role-based access governs internal systems, while web-facing assets use firewalls and modern controls. Endpoint security is managed through an AI-based EDR platform.

PNB Housing also invests in continuous employee training. “The human firewall is as important as the tools,” Rajput noted.