Traditional banking still finds favour with most Indians, said a study. Most customers prefer visiting a branch or accessing automated teller machines (ATM) for their regular banking needs and are yet to feel at ease with the emerging trend of mobile or internet banking.
“Customers’ preference for traditional banking channels that is branch and ATM comes across prominently in our study. Over 78 per cent respondents mentioned the branch and ATM as the preferred channel for priorities such as accessibility, quality of service and speed of problem resolution,” said a survey conducted by consulting firm Accenture. There are around 65,000 branches and nearly 44,000 commercial banks ATMs in the country.
The study said though use of alternate channels is consistently on the rise, it is still struggling with customer acceptance. For banks, transaction costs at a branch is three times more than using an ATM. Electronic transactions are more cost effective.
“Low awareness levels are driving the ‘lack of need’ and hence poor usage. The greatest barrier for respondents in using multiple channels is that they do not feel the need to use a different channel, as well as low awareness for internet, phone and mobile banking,” the report said.
The use of ATMs is primarily for withdrawing cash or checking account balance. However, the positive trend is nearly 40 per cent of respondents said they are planning to use at least one new channel in the next six months to interact with their primary bank, the report said.
“To capture this opportunity of new users for alternate channels, banks will first need to ensure an integrated and consistent service experience across the multiple channels,” it said.
