Babu Thomas: the basketball player-turned-banker who drives Federal Bank’s IT transition

Basketball was Babu Thomas' passion during his college days. While pursuing his BTech in Electrical And Electronics Engineering at Calicut University in 1988 – 1992, he was also the college sports secretary.

When it was time to do some serious dribbling with life and choose between the ball in a court or a job in a bank, he grabbed the latter -- and he never left hold of it. It is almost three decades -- 27 years to be precise -- since he joined the Federal Bank.

Having joined the Aluva-headquartered banking major in 1996 as a probationer in general banking, Thomas is now the senior vice-president and head of IT department there.

Thomas started his IT stint in the bank as system support staffer. In 2006 , when the bank decided to go for Core Banking Solution (CBS) he was selected as a core implementing team member.

After implementing and stabilising the CBS, he now looks after new IT initiatives including risk management solutions, customer relationship management and process management.

Thomas has also led the bank’s application development and implementation vertical, which handles the mobile and internet banking domains.

Innovations like Selfie app, where a prospective customer can open an account by downloading the bank’s Fedbook app, missed call facility for balance inquiry, mobile top-up and fund transfer were rolled out by his team.

Thomas will be speaking at the fifth edition of Techspectations, Manorama Online’s digital summit, as a banker-techie who has overseen the drastic transition stage in the sector. He will be participating at a panel discussion on ‘Cyber & Data Security for BFSI’.

Techspectations 2023

The fifth edition of the Techspectations will be held at Le Meridien hotel in Kochi on February 17. The theme of the marquee digital summit will be “Manorama@25: Absorb, Evolve, Thrive in the Digital Order” as it coincides with the 25th anniversary of Manorama Online.

Top tech experts, entrepreneurs, investors, and other stakeholders will participate in Techspectations 2023. The event will dwell on the infinite potential of the digital world and related topics.

Log on to https://www.techspectations.com for more details and to book your seats.