A digital banking platform is the software that runs a bank's mobile app and its website, which Indians usually call net banking. Through it, you check your balance, transfer money, open a fixed deposit or block your card, without going to a branch. It is also called the digital bank, or the bank's digital channels.
The platform does not hold your money or your balance. These are kept in the bank's core banking system. When you open the app, the platform asks the core for your balance and shows it to you. Say you then transfer ₹5,000 to a friend. The platform sends the instruction to the core, and the core debits your account. The platform and the core exchange these requests through APIs, fixed formats in which one program asks another program for data or gives it an instruction.
Before the app lets you in, it must check that you really are the account holder. It uses multi-factor authentication. This means you prove who you are in two ways, for example with your MPIN and with a fingerprint or an OTP. When a new customer opens an account in the app, the platform uses identity verification to check their Aadhaar and PAN card. This is part of KYC, the identity checks that the RBI requires before a bank opens an account.
Who builds this software? Many banks buy the platform from software companies, in the same way as they buy their core. In India, much of a bank's software is built by IT services firms under contract. But a few large Indian private banks now build their own app with their own engineers. India also builds digital banks for other countries. Several companies with large teams in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Mumbai build the apps of American banks and credit unions. A credit union is a bank owned by its own members.
The app is no longer only screens and buttons. Many banks now add an AI banking assistant, which answers your questions in a chat window inside the app. At the branch, staff use branch banking software that works on the same customer records as the app.