Almost all the public sector banks and private sector banks are offering mobile banking services this has also helped the banks to attract more customer. On the other hand the customers find mobile banking convenient.
There have been instances where mobile banking has proved to be the convenient medium for information. In one such instance Mr N. Ramesh, a staffer of Infosys received the SMS - “Your account is debited by Rs 15,000.” Bank timely action saved N. Ramesh from losing Rs 2.5 lakh in his ICICI Bank account. One of his servants has fraudulently used his debit card.
In another incidence Mr H.V. Murthy, would have transferred Rs 5,000 to his son's account who study in BITS, Pilani- Goa campus, but he got held up on the highway on his way to Visakhapatnam due to the Telangana trouble.
In such type of incidence mobile banking has been very useful in saving money of the bank customers, as banks alerted their customers on time which saved them from losing their money.
In India around thirty-two banks have got approval for offering mobile banking services, out of these 21 banks have started offering these services.
The banks who have initiated these services are mostly private banks and these banks are in the process of introducing new technologies to improve services, on the other hand some of the public sector banks have started following the private banks.
The Reserve Bank of India is also encouraging the general public to use mobile banking services in view of this, to boost these offering, the RBI has few days back increased the cap on daily mobile transactions to Rs 50,000 from the earlier limit of Rs 5,000.
A spokesperson from ICICI Bank told Business Line, “We have witnessed an increasing trend of customers registering for mobile banking.” In 2003 bank had launched mobile banking facility for its customers and since then it has been offering various mobile banking options, now eight million customers have registered for mobile banking services.
ICICI Bank has various options, from simple SMS alerts to a rich client-based application, iMobile, through which customers can practically do all Internet banking transactions using mobile phones. The spokesperson informed, “We would like to enhance the number of transactional services to make mobile a main banking channel for customers.”
Mr. Sanjeev Patel, EVP & Head, Direct Banking channels, HDFC Bank informed HDFC Bank customers carry out both types of financial transactions fund transfers and merchants payments. Thus both type of financial transactions done stands to equal. He said, “The balance enquiry and mini statement constitute 98 per cent of the non-financial Mobile Banking transactions.”
He stated, HDFC Bank has over five million registered users and it will continue to introduce new services such as banking for unbanked/rural customer, secure online payments using ‘card on mobile', etc, apart from extending the existing services under NetBanking suite on the mobile.
Now public sector banks (PSBs) have started looking at this as a value addition to their services. Amongst PSBs State Bank of India is the first one to introduce mobile banking facility and has seen a sharp increase in customers registering for mobile banking. Last fiscal there were around 6,000 bank customers using mobile banking services.
By September bank’s mobile banking using customer base increased to over 51,000. Bank witnessed increase in the number of transactions also it increased from about 68,000 to over 5.5 lakh during the same period. Mr Shiva Kumar, Chief General Manager, SBI, Hyderabad, informed, “It is growing because of inherent advantages.”
A senior official of Allahabad Bank pointed out many of the public sector banks are focusing on rural customers and large number of rural customers are not aware about mobile banking services this could be reason behind the slow growth of these banks.
Recently, while speaking at the India Telecom conference earlier this month, Dr K.C. Chakraborty, Deputy Governor of RBI said, “We recognize that mobile phone can be an important mode for propagation of financial inclusion in the country. The coverage of mobile phones and the use of such instruments by all section of the population can be exploited for extending financial services to the excluded populations.”
He also pointed out that banks are mostly setting eyes on high net worth customers who book their airline tickets and do large ticket transactions through mobile banking. He asked, “Why are banks not facilitating low value transactions”? He said now banks should take up a challenge to encourage low value transactions through these services.
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