Is the future of banking fin tech or tech fin? Will technology follow banking, or the other way round? A panel of six top bankers discussed this at Business Standard’s Annual Banking Forum debated in Mumbai on Thursday.

Business Standard consulting editor Tamal Bandyopadhyay, who moderated the debate, said tech-fin companies are nimble and innovative with finances compared—they are disruptive but they are not necessarily banks. Fin-tech companies, in contrast, have the experience and infrastructure to manage finances, but they are waking up to the disruption created by technology.

The work banks do will change because of technology and they have to innovate quickly: that was the broad view of HDFC Bank's Nitin Chugh, Payments Council of India chairman Naveen Surya, ICICI Bank's B Madhivanan, InfrasoftTech's Rajesh Mirjankar, Bank of Baroda's Akhil Handa, and National Payments Corp of India's Dilip Asbe.

“Bank branches will stay but their size and nature of their work will change,” said Madhivanan, who is Chief technology and Digital Officer at ICICI Bank. There will be a bank branch and the ATM will survive too but there will probably be a humanoid to help customers, he said.

“I think in 5-10 years down the line it will be common for people to interact with robots, whether it is at banks or hospitals,” said Chugh, who is HDFC’s country head for digital banking.

Surya, of the Payments Council of India, said traditional banks will have to first invest in and build technology. “Before you disrupt, you built and we’ve not built the digital system yet. We have to create a converge moment and not a WhatsApp moment,” he said.

“We don’t have a choice but to innovate. We don’t have an option,” said Handa, head of fintech and new business initiatives at state-run Bank of Baroda.