Arka Sarkar

PMP-certified BFSI professional adept in digital lending, core banking solutions, financial product development and marketing. Proven track record in driving digital transformation initiatives for Fortune 100 financial services clients through software integration, regulatory compliance, and agile project management.

Work Experience

Industry Live Project - Thematic Investment Analysis using AI | Mirae Global Asset Investments

  • Extracted and parsed through 10-K SEC annual reports with real-time financial APIs to classify companies on ongoing thematic trends
  • Analyzed financial text statements to identify key ratios, such as PEG and XIRR, using predictive analysis and NLP tokenization
  • Developed a ranking framework for Top 1000 NASDAQ companies using sentiment analysis for optimized investment strategies

 

Assistant Manager - Credit Officer | State Bank of India | Kolkata, India         

  • Provided digital and collateral/non-collateral based lending services to 20K+ retail/MSME clients. 
  • Handled credit portfolio of ₹2100 Mn, driven mainly by personal segment credit (₹1300 Mn) and MSME credit (₹800 Mn)
    - Integrated 20+ bundled financial product packages across 7+ consumer categories to ensure maximum market penetration and generating credit growth of 20% YoY.
    - Extended ₹260 Mn to 25 business clients in digital business credit by undertaking comprehensive digital financial underwriting through online Credit Monitoring Arrangement (CMA) and risk assessment.
  • Bolstered CBDC adoption by 20% during its pilot phase of 5 months by onboarding 1500+ new customers to the SBI CBDC platform.
  • Enhanced asset quality by 30% by reducing NPA levels below 2% by monitoring key risk indicators to predict delinquencies and outliers, through effective account management strategies.
  • Reduced TAT from 9 to 3 days by enhancing continuous improvement processes in client proposal ratings, approval and sanctions
    - Enhanced NPS score by 15 points (out of 100) for the retail credit division during general banking assignment
    - Orchestrated 30+ market research surveys and field inspections to understand client pain points and brainstorm potential solutions.
  • Spearheaded marketing strategies and executed campaigns to accelerate digital business growth, achieving 65% of the YoY business growth budget of FY 2023-24 within the first 6 months.
  • Accelerated the Wealth Management portfolio of 30 SME/NRI HNW clients by advising innovative investment strategies 
  • Mentored 10+ Junior Associates and Probationary Officers on Credit Risk and Operational Risk Management.

 

Probationary Officer  | State Bank of India | Kolkata, India             

  • Devised 50+ product pitches for fund and non-fund based facilities, generating ₹2.5Mn+ revenue through other income.
  • Implemented the digital onboarding of 1500+ consumers and business accounts to YONO platform
  • Increased digital preapproved credit disbursal by 70% YoY and expanded new bancassurance products portfolio by 20% by reaching out to early adopters through new marketing channels (SBIPay, YONO Cash).
  • Assisted top management with data insights and go-to-market strategy through evaluation of 80K+ customers’ transaction data
    - Increased ‘YONO’ user engagement by 4X of target DAU, through effective product positioning and target feature highlights.
  • Expedited the disbursal of financial products(PMSBY, PMJJBY, PPF, NPS) and social security cover to 7K+ rural and semi-urban customers
    - Spearheaded a team of 7 associates for enrolment of 2K+ customers daily to State/Central Government schemes.
    - Managed cross-functional teams of 4-10 associates across verticals such as SME/MSME credit, Personal Banking and Forex Banking.
  • Led sales strategy development to increase the penetration of retail credit (mortgage-backed and auto loans) by 20%, leading to an overall increase in asset size of ₹50 Mn.

 

 Jr. Software Engineer – Orbit Shifter | Cognizant | Chennai, India                

  • Accelerated the digital transformation processes for a North American Big 4 banking client.
  • Collaborated with senior client executives on requirement gathering analysis and product roadmap strategy to design the web MVP and prioritize features based on incremental value to the end-users.
  • Expedited the research, design, prototype and validation of 25+ new UI features of a Wealth Management application for HNW end users, through the integration of scalable technologies such as Angular 10 and .Net Core in the software development life-cycle.
  • Introduced 20+ innovative modular component designs and executed the automation of 120+ redundant algorithms, leading to a 20%+ decrease in application load time and 10% decrease in memory usage.
  • Collaborated with global cross-functional teams in 130+ agile sprints and mentored new joiners on project architecture
  • Initiated Proof-of-concept projects such as Assets & Liabilities Tax Calculator, and regression testing to identify outliers and rectify them, enhancing application performance by 10%.
  • Collaborated with 5+ QA team members to conduct the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for critical functionality and integration testing.
  • Initiated 20 requirement analysis and gathering to identify 10+ functional user stories with potential revenue impact of $1.6 Mn
  • Led a team of 4 trainees and mentored them on client interviews, coding best practices, project architecture and financial services and products of the client.

 

Project Intern - BFSI | Cognizant | Kolkata, India

  • Trained on JAVA full-stack development and AWS integration and responsible for in-house deliverables on payment gateway services for BFSI Business Units across pan-India locations.
Accomplishments
  • Selected in the Orbit Shifter cohort – Cognizant: Top 1% in 25000+ candidates onboarded in FY 2019-2020.
  • Selected in the SBI PO examination: Top 0.002% among 1 Mn candidates in the SBI PO 2020 examination.
  • Full-time internship: Selected for a 6-month internship (120/1400) at Cognizant, which I converted to a full-time offer.
  • Fast track promotion – Cognizant: Promoted to Jr. Software Engineer in my first year.
  • Selected for SBICRM Gurgaon training - SBI: Selected for full-time training at the apex institute of SBI Credit Risk Management. 
  • Certificate of Excellence SBI: Awarded certificate from Circle General Manager for top performance in digital business credit.
  • Certificate of Excellence - SBI: Awarded certificate from Regional Manager for top performance in Government Business(PPF, NPS, PMJJBY) during rural posting.
Education

B.Tech (Computer Science), West Bengal University of Technology

Certificates
  • Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute
  • AWS Cloud Technical Essentials, AWS (Coursera)
  • Google Project Management – Specialization, Google
  • Management Consulting, Emory University                                                                                                                     
Co/Extra-curricular
  • Elected Secretary of Profile Committee - 16 member committee driving the profile verification, refinement and overall development of the cohort.
  • Elected member of Finance committee, Elixir club - Bi-annual undergraduate cultural fest
  • Bronze medal,  Grey Matters - Inter-college quiz competition
  • Bronze medal, Extra Time - Inter-college football quiz competition
  • Organized regular CSR activities at SBI such as blood-donation camps and educational camps for aspiring banking aspirants.
  • Multiple accolades in FIFA at school and college level

Quick Look

  • Work Experience: 4.7 Years
  • Previous Roles

    Assistant Manager, State Bank of India

    Jr. Software Engineer - BFSI, Cognizant

  • Function : Finance/Accounting
    Product Management/Development
    Project/Program Management
  • Industry/Sector: BFSI
    Technology
Work Experience

Industry Live Project - Thematic Investment Analysis using AI | Mirae Global Asset Investments

  • Extracted and parsed through 10-K SEC annual reports with real-time financial APIs to classify companies on ongoing thematic trends
  • Analyzed financial text statements to identify key ratios, such as PEG and XIRR, using predictive analysis and NLP tokenization
  • Developed a ranking framework for Top 1000 NASDAQ companies using sentiment analysis for optimized investment strategies

 

Assistant Manager - Credit Officer | State Bank of India | Kolkata, India         

  • Provided digital and collateral/non-collateral based lending services to 20K+ retail/MSME clients. 
  • Handled credit portfolio of ₹2100 Mn, driven mainly by personal segment credit (₹1300 Mn) and MSME credit (₹800 Mn)
    - Integrated 20+ bundled financial product packages across 7+ consumer categories to ensure maximum market penetration and generating credit growth of 20% YoY.
    - Extended ₹260 Mn to 25 business clients in digital business credit by undertaking comprehensive digital financial underwriting through online Credit Monitoring Arrangement (CMA) and risk assessment.
  • Bolstered CBDC adoption by 20% during its pilot phase of 5 months by onboarding 1500+ new customers to the SBI CBDC platform.
  • Enhanced asset quality by 30% by reducing NPA levels below 2% by monitoring key risk indicators to predict delinquencies and outliers, through effective account management strategies.
  • Reduced TAT from 9 to 3 days by enhancing continuous improvement processes in client proposal ratings, approval and sanctions
    - Enhanced NPS score by 15 points (out of 100) for the retail credit division during general banking assignment
    - Orchestrated 30+ market research surveys and field inspections to understand client pain points and brainstorm potential solutions.
  • Spearheaded marketing strategies and executed campaigns to accelerate digital business growth, achieving 65% of the YoY business growth budget of FY 2023-24 within the first 6 months.
  • Accelerated the Wealth Management portfolio of 30 SME/NRI HNW clients by advising innovative investment strategies 
  • Mentored 10+ Junior Associates and Probationary Officers on Credit Risk and Operational Risk Management.

 

Probationary Officer  | State Bank of India | Kolkata, India             

  • Devised 50+ product pitches for fund and non-fund based facilities, generating ₹2.5Mn+ revenue through other income.
  • Implemented the digital onboarding of 1500+ consumers and business accounts to YONO platform
  • Increased digital preapproved credit disbursal by 70% YoY and expanded new bancassurance products portfolio by 20% by reaching out to early adopters through new marketing channels (SBIPay, YONO Cash).
  • Assisted top management with data insights and go-to-market strategy through evaluation of 80K+ customers’ transaction data
    - Increased ‘YONO’ user engagement by 4X of target DAU, through effective product positioning and target feature highlights.
  • Expedited the disbursal of financial products(PMSBY, PMJJBY, PPF, NPS) and social security cover to 7K+ rural and semi-urban customers
    - Spearheaded a team of 7 associates for enrolment of 2K+ customers daily to State/Central Government schemes.
    - Managed cross-functional teams of 4-10 associates across verticals such as SME/MSME credit, Personal Banking and Forex Banking.
  • Led sales strategy development to increase the penetration of retail credit (mortgage-backed and auto loans) by 20%, leading to an overall increase in asset size of ₹50 Mn.

 

 Jr. Software Engineer – Orbit Shifter | Cognizant | Chennai, India                

  • Accelerated the digital transformation processes for a North American Big 4 banking client.
  • Collaborated with senior client executives on requirement gathering analysis and product roadmap strategy to design the web MVP and prioritize features based on incremental value to the end-users.
  • Expedited the research, design, prototype and validation of 25+ new UI features of a Wealth Management application for HNW end users, through the integration of scalable technologies such as Angular 10 and .Net Core in the software development life-cycle.
  • Introduced 20+ innovative modular component designs and executed the automation of 120+ redundant algorithms, leading to a 20%+ decrease in application load time and 10% decrease in memory usage.
  • Collaborated with global cross-functional teams in 130+ agile sprints and mentored new joiners on project architecture
  • Initiated Proof-of-concept projects such as Assets & Liabilities Tax Calculator, and regression testing to identify outliers and rectify them, enhancing application performance by 10%.
  • Collaborated with 5+ QA team members to conduct the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) for critical functionality and integration testing.
  • Initiated 20 requirement analysis and gathering to identify 10+ functional user stories with potential revenue impact of $1.6 Mn
  • Led a team of 4 trainees and mentored them on client interviews, coding best practices, project architecture and financial services and products of the client.

 

Project Intern - BFSI | Cognizant | Kolkata, India

  • Trained on JAVA full-stack development and AWS integration and responsible for in-house deliverables on payment gateway services for BFSI Business Units across pan-India locations.
Accomplishments
  • Selected in the Orbit Shifter cohort – Cognizant: Top 1% in 25000+ candidates onboarded in FY 2019-2020.
  • Selected in the SBI PO examination: Top 0.002% among 1 Mn candidates in the SBI PO 2020 examination.
  • Full-time internship: Selected for a 6-month internship (120/1400) at Cognizant, which I converted to a full-time offer.
  • Fast track promotion – Cognizant: Promoted to Jr. Software Engineer in my first year.
  • Selected for SBICRM Gurgaon training - SBI: Selected for full-time training at the apex institute of SBI Credit Risk Management. 
  • Certificate of Excellence SBI: Awarded certificate from Circle General Manager for top performance in digital business credit.
  • Certificate of Excellence - SBI: Awarded certificate from Regional Manager for top performance in Government Business(PPF, NPS, PMJJBY) during rural posting.
Education

B.Tech (Computer Science), West Bengal University of Technology

Certificates
  • Project Management Professional (PMP), Project Management Institute
  • AWS Cloud Technical Essentials, AWS (Coursera)
  • Google Project Management – Specialization, Google
  • Management Consulting, Emory University                                                                                                                     
Co/Extra-curricular
  • Elected Secretary of Profile Committee - 16 member committee driving the profile verification, refinement and overall development of the cohort.
  • Elected member of Finance committee, Elixir club - Bi-annual undergraduate cultural fest
  • Bronze medal,  Grey Matters - Inter-college quiz competition
  • Bronze medal, Extra Time - Inter-college football quiz competition
  • Organized regular CSR activities at SBI such as blood-donation camps and educational camps for aspiring banking aspirants.
  • Multiple accolades in FIFA at school and college level