„Mobile Payment“ von Richard Tanzer Fotografie / VeroPay - Eigenes Werk. Lizenziert unter CC BY-SA 3.0 über Wikimedia Commons.
Mydigitalfc, By B Krishna Mohan Feb 22 2015, Next generation services catching on as technology aids offering of personalised and contextual products to customers. Writing a cheque is so last-gen, says a bank portal. On a monthly basis more and more people are taking the digital banking route. The number and the value of the transactions are on the rise. According to Reserve Bank of India data, the number of real time gross settlement (RTGS) transactions at the end of December 2014 were 8.19 million, up 16.66 per cent from 7.02 million during the same time in the previous year. In value terms too, it has been Rs 8,4449.6 billion as of December end of 2014, up 8.02 per cent from Rs 7,8175.06 billion in December 2013. In the IMPS (immediate payment service) segment, there were 8.38 million transactions as of December 2014, up more than three fold from 1.93 million transactions in the previous year. In value terms, it was Rs 60.36 billion, up from Rs 11.07 billion a year ago. Mobile banking has increased from 8.89 million transactions as of December 2013 to 16.78 million in December 2014, an increase of 88.75 per cent in one year. The value of transaction was Rs 22.61 billion in December 2013 and has gone up to Rs 113.23 billion, up 400 times. What is shaping the future of digital banking, however, is the increasing use of mobile wallets. Mobile wallet transactions has been on the rise from 8.58 million of December 2013 to 23.19 million transactions in December 2014, marking an increase of 170 per cent.The value of mobile wallet used was Rs 2.48 billion in December 2013 and Rs 8.28 billion in a year from then, an increase of 233.8 per cent. The electronic fund transfer and NEFT has seen 83.49 million transactions as of December 2014, up from 60.36 million transactions in the corresponding period last year, an increase of 38.32 per cent. The value was Rs 5,573.36 billion, up 41.84 per cent from Rs 3,929.28 billion. “Digital transformation is leading to delivery of new consumer propositions,” said RK Gupta, executive director, Bank of Maharashtra. According to him, technology is aiding in offering personalised and contextual products to the customers. The banking industry has been using internet, mobile, social networking and analytics to know the customers better and their by provide targeted offerings. Banks sooner or later would be one stop shops for many services due to the paradigm shift happening due to the use of technology, he said. “Banking through social networking sites is interactive and many are comfortable with it as they are always connected to the internet through the smart phones and tablets,” said Gupta. For instance, ICICI Bank has been offering banking services through social networking sites like the twitter and Facebook. ICICI has launched Pockets, a digital bank with a mobile first interface. Pockets is a wallet, a virtual place to store money and can be loaded. Download the app, enter the KYC details, verify the mobile number and create a user ID and password. Existing ICICI bank customers can use internet banking user ID and password. There is an option of getting a no minimum balance savings account too. One can receive interest on your balances, create deposits, enjoy higher transaction limits and withdraw cash with the pockets savings account. The VISA-powered wallet allows one to send and receive money, book tickets, gift physical/e-vouchers, pay bills, recharge mobiles and split expenses with friends. With Pockets, one can transfer money to bank accounts, to mobile number, email id, Google+ or Facebook id. Chat features are built into the app for customer support. It can be used for shopping online from any Indian website. And for paying for coffee or tea, one can get a physical Pockets card. ICICI Bank also offers payments service using just Twitter. With this one can pay a friend, recharge prepaid mobile, check account balance and view last three transactions on Twitter. Getting on board is not difficult either. One has to follow ICICI ibank on Twitter, send a direct message to register, get an one time password (OTP) on the registered mobile and again send a direct message with the OTP. Money can be transferred, up to Rs 5,000 per transaction and a daily limit of Rs 10,000, to anybody with a valid bank account in India, both the sender and the beneficiary have to be registered on Twitter. When customers send money to friends using icicibankpay, the senders will receive a 4 digit passcode on their registered mobile number. This code has to be shared with receivers to withdraw money. The receivers have to authenticate their Twitter account by entering Twitter ID and password, put their bank account details and the four digit passcode to withdraw money. The sent coupon remains valid for seven days, after which it expires and the amount is credited ack to senders’ accounts. The senders’ can also cancel the coupon and the transferred money will be credited back. The communication between Twitter account and your ICICI Bank account is carried out through private structured messages and not through public tweets. No financial details are shared on the public domain. Financial transactions using Twitter account uses social media only as the communication platform . All transactions happen on secure bank servers and not on Twitter. At present there are no charges for the services. Transactions on Facebook too are similar. To send money to others, the user need to do generate a coupon for the required amount and send it to their friends via SMS/E-mail/Facebook personal notification. They can redeem the same instantly in their bank account by authenticating themselves. Pockets can be used to pay bills, book tickets, open FD, check bank accounts, credit cards and make fund transfers, view credit card statements, statements of demat account, transfer money to linked accounts, transfer money to friend’s ICICI Bank account, apply for fixed deposit / recurring Deposit, apply for a cheque book, submit a stop-cheque request, apply for e-statement and request for an upgraded debit card. In another new offering, HDFC has announced Chillr, which allows its users to transfer money to anyone in the phonebook contacts. There is no need to add beneficiaries or account numbers. HDFC automated bill payments with its Smartpay. Close to 50 per cent of its transactions take place online or on mobile. The effort of the banks has been to reduce the cost of operations. ATMS, which have been offering a range of services, reduces the cost. Internet operations reduce it further, said Gupta. Finacle, in one of its thought papers — New Age Banking in the Digitised and Networked World of Social Media, said the financial community has realised that this platform presented an opportunity that they cannot afford to ignore. Banks have made a beginning and they needed to look beyond the networking capabilities of social media. Use of analytics will help them understand customers better and offer personalised products and relevant services to the customer in an integrated manner. It said online interactions did not destroy relationships of the banks nor did they replace physical bonds. However, online media could enhance the relationship between the customer and the brand. Social media interaction will soon be a regular feature of daily life. A report ‘Digital Banking’ by the Boston Consulting Group, FICCI and Indian Banks Association said by digitising processes end to end, engaging customers on digital channels for transactions and sales and working towards eradicating cash, banks can achieve up 30 per cent jump in sales productivity, reduce administrative staff by about 10-15 per cent and improve back office staff productivity by 20 per cent. Challenges will come from the old and the new. Digital banking would require samart investment in technology architecture and intuitive design of channel interfaces. IT spend of Indian banks is rising steadily and has now reached four percent of revenues.The report said mobile phones will be the primary banking channel in five years, it said. “It is the mobile first approach that is important for the connect with the youth,” said Sunil Kulkarni, deputy managing director, Oxigen Services, which has launched wallet services on Facebook and Twitter as well in August last year. “The online transactions are perhaps more safer than the conventional magnetic strip based cards. The chip enabled cards offer better security due to the pin provided. However, the purpose is defeated as in most cases the pin is told aloud at the POS, which should not be the case,” he said adding that transactions based on mobile are safer as the mobile is a personal device and passcodes sent cannot be viewed by others. Also for transactions on e-commerce sites, an OTP is given and as the name suggests can be used only once, said Kulkarni adding that OTP will be an integral part of many transactions soon. From the safety point of view, it is safer to use wallets online as the damage, in case of hacking or the like, is limited only to the value stored on the wallet. This does not expose the full salary, savings or investments when using a full account transaction through social networking. In any case, adequate care has to be taken in all cases to ensure the safety of data. Like Oixgen, there are many other players who have applied for a payment bank licence. Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Aditya Birla Group, Future Group, and Vodafone, Itz Cash and others are in the race to get a licence for payments banks. ICICI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Axis Bank too have expressed an interest to partner with the applicants. This would aid in financial inclusion in rural areas as well as promote growth in urban areas and several players will usher in technological advancements. With some of them telecom players, one can expect new offerings including cash in, cash out, money transfers to their already existing customers as well as new customers, he said. Naveen Surya, MD, Itzcash, a wallet provider, banking would continue to move from physical access to digital and more and more transactions would move to digital mediums. In general, the transactions are safe subject to security measures. eWallets have growth over last two years and mobile and DTH recharges, utility bill Payments, taxi service payments, money transfers continue to move to wallets. “Technology will be a great enabler when it comes to offering last mile solutions to consumers when it comes to real time banking and easy access points for all related transactions,” said Surya adding that with payment bank licences, savings and current Accounts, besides formal credit and loans and insurance services and other related third party services in partnership with other banks and other financial institutions. krishnamohan, @mydigitalfc.com. Source: mydigitalfc.com
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