Edinbox Exclusive: Face to face with a Senior Product Manager Abhinav Srivastava on Building Digital Banking Products That Actually Work

As banking rapidly moves away from branch-led interactions towards seamless digital ecosystems, product managers have emerged as the silent force driving this transformation. Abhinav Srivastava operates at the intersection of technology, regulation, and customer-centric innovation. With over seven years of experience across India’s banking and financial services sector, he has been instrumental in converting complex business objectives into secure, scalable, and user-friendly digital products.

Currently serving as Senior Product Manager at RBL Bank, Abhinav owns the end-to-end product roadmap and execution for the bank’s web and mobile platforms. Working closely with engineering, UX, marketing, compliance, and operations teams, he ensures that innovation aligns with regulatory and security requirements. His approach spans the full product lifecycle—from ideation and prioritisation to delivery governance and post-launch optimisation—grounded in data-driven decision-making.

Abhinav’s career includes key roles at IndiaLends, ICICI Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Prime, where he gained deep exposure to digital lending platforms, customer acquisition journeys, SaaS and CRM implementations, and enterprise-wide digital adoption. Backed by an MBA and PGPM in Marketing from ICFAI Foundation for Higher Education and a BBA in International Business from the University of Lucknow, he offers valuable insights into building impactful digital products in highly regulated environments.

1. How has your formal education (MBA, PGPM, BBA) shaped your approach to product strategy and decision-making in the highly regulated banking sector? What advice would you give students who believe that degrees alone guarantee success in tech and fintech careers?

Answer: My education definitely played an important role, but more as a foundation than a differentiator. My BBA helped me understand how businesses operate at a global level, while the MBA and PGPM sharpened my thinking around consumer behavior, strategy, and decision-making. In banking, especially in regulated environments, that structured way of thinking helps, you’re constantly balancing growth, customer experience, and compliance.

That said, very early in my career I realized that degrees don’t prepare you for real-world complexity. No classroom really teaches you how to handle ambiguous requirements, stakeholder pushback, or last-minute regulatory changes. Those things only come with experience.

To students who believe degrees guarantee success, I’d say, your degree might get you into the room, but it won’t help you stay there. What really matters is how fast you learn, how well you adapt, and how effectively you execute once you’re inside the system.

2. As a Senior Product Manager owning multiple digital platforms (web, mobile, CRM, lending journeys), how would you prioritize investments when resources are limited? What criteria would you use to decide between improving existing features vs. launching new ones?

Answer: When resources are limited, I focus on where the biggest customer or business pain exists. I start by looking at data—high-traffic journeys, drop-offs, and platforms directly linked to revenue or compliance. If an existing feature is creating friction in a critical flow, I usually prioritize fixing that before launching something new.

My decision criteria are simple: customer impact, business value, regulatory urgency, and effort versus return. In a regulated environment like banking, improving existing journeys often delivers faster and lower-risk value, while new features are prioritized only when they unlock new revenue, meet compliance needs, or provide clear competitive advantage.

For me, prioritization is about making practical trade-offs and being transparent with stakeholders about why certain investments matter more at that time.

3. What gaps do you see between what management education teaches and what the industry actually demands from digital product leaders today?  

Answer: Management education does a good job of teaching frameworks and structured thinking, but the industry expects digital product leaders to operate comfortably in ambiguity and deliver outcomes under real constraints. In the real world, requirements are rarely complete, priorities change quickly, and decisions often need to be made with imperfect information.

Another gap is practical technology understanding. Product leaders don’t need to code, but they do need to understand how systems, APIs, and platforms work to make realistic decisions with engineering teams.

Lastly, the industry demands strong stakeholder management and execution skills- balancing business, tech, UX, compliance, and timelines which is something that is learned far more through hands-on experience than in classrooms.

4. In a digital lending or banking product, what KPIs would you track across the full lifecycle—from acquisition to onboarding, engagement, retention, and monetization? How would you use these metrics to drive continuous optimization?

Answer: I track KPIs across the lifecycle to understand how customers move through the product and where friction exists, not just to report numbers.

At acquisition, I look at traffic quality, CTR, and lead-to-application ratios to ensure we’re attracting the right users.

During onboarding, drop-offs at each step, time to complete the journey, and STP rates are critical because that’s where most losses happen.

For engagement, I track active users, feature usage, and journey completion to see if customers are actually finding value.

In retention, repeat usage and return rates help gauge trust and stickiness.

Finally, for monetization, I track conversion to funded accounts or loans, revenue per customer, and cross-sell or upsell uptake.

I use these metrics to continuously prioritize the backlog, fixing high drop-off points, validating A/B tests, improving messaging or UX, and deciding where to invest next. Metrics guide decisions and help the product evolve based on real customer behavior.

5. How important is continuous learning in your field, and what role should universities play in preparing students for rapidly evolving digital ecosystems?

Answer: Continuous learning is absolutely critical in product management, especially in fintech and banking where technology, regulations, and customer expectations keep evolving. What worked a couple of years ago can become irrelevant very quickly, so staying curious and adaptable is essential.

Universities should focus less on teaching specific tools and more on building strong fundamentals like  problem solving, critical thinking, and comfort with ambiguity. Exposure to real-world projects, industry case studies, and internships can help students understand how fast-paced and interconnected digital ecosystems really are. The goal should be to prepare students to keep learning, not to assume they’re done once they graduate.