A concept more usually associated with burger or vada pav sale outlets has been found to work well with the business clientile of banks. The idea in question is the ‘drive-through’ facility, where a customer comes to an outlet in his or her vehicle and transacts the business without getting out of it. “I went to America 12 years ago and saw this kind of banking,” says Jyotindra Mehta, now chairman of the Gujarat Urban Cooperative Banks Federation. He used to be the chairman of Rajkot Nagarik Sahakari Bank Ltd (RNSBL) and thought it was worth trying.
There were logistic issues with the branches at Rajkot, and it was decided to try the experiment at the south Gujarat city of Surat, 470 km away, where there was a single branch. In that bustling commercial centre, people are generally in a hurry; in addition, the Surat branch (it has about 50,000 acount holders) had a growing problem in offering vehicle parking. Thus began the experiment with a drive-through bank.
The clientile liked it. They could make cash and cheque transactions without getting out of the car, at a window. And so, in time, it was decided to offer it in Rajkot, too. There were some limitations, so instead of cash and cheque (in Surat, one can now make cash transactions up to Rs 1 lakh through the window) facilities, it was decided to offer only those for demat transactions.
That began a year before. “You just drive in a car to the window and transact,” says Bhavesh Rajdev, branch manager of the demat division of RNSBL. About 35,000 demat holders are entitled. “When the market is good, it is around 100 a day.” “We will implement the drive-through banking facility in other branches, too. But we need to set up proper infrastructure and it will take some time,” says Kalpak Maniyar, chairman of RNSBL.
