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The attempt of banks to encourage their customers to use the digital medium and ATMs seems to be working, with ICICI Bank claiming that only 15 per cent of all its transactions take place at branches.
Most of the transactions are done through the Internet, mobiles, social media or call centres,” said N S Kannan, executive director, ICICI Bank at the Mumbai Next MMR Transformation Conclave.
Lenders — ICICI is the largest private sector lender — have been encouraging customers to conduct business through mediums other than branches as it helps them control costs. For instance, as per estimates bankers say that the cost of transaction via an ATM becomes one fourth as compared to a branch. In case of the digital medium the cost becomes almost one-twentieth in comparison to a branch.
In the last one year ICICI Bank has launched several applications to encourage mobile and internet banking transactions. Recently, the lender also allowed the customers to transfer money via the microblogging site Twitter.
About 50-55 per cent of ICICI Bank’s customer now transact via the digital medium. Currently there are 250 million people that are active on internet and the bank expects the number to double to 50 crore by 2018. Currently, out of the 250 million users, 190 million are active on mobile internet.
The fall in the prices of smart phones have increased mobile internet usage and as a result transaction via the platform have been growing. In the month of October, as per Reserve Bank of India data, mobile banking transactions in the industry were recorded at Rs 8,403.27 crore more than double from Rs 3,985 recorded in June quarter.
In the same month, ICICI Bank had recorded transactions worth Rs 1,416.52 crore via banking on mobile devices.
