Mobile banking hits a high: ICICI Bank takes the lead
Mumbai: ICICI Bank has outpaced its peers in mobile banking with the maximum number of transactions worth over Rs 6,800 crores in July this year. In terms of volume, the bank recorded 53.2 lakh transactions in the same month, leading among private sector banks and twice the next bank on the list.
The recently upgraded iMobile app of ICICI Bank is one of the key drivers for the high value growth in the mobile banking space. According to RBI data, the bank has recorded transactions nearly worth Rs 16,000 crores, in fiscal 2015. It has already surpassed this in the first quarter of the current fiscal itself. The bank has an ambitious plan to grow mobile banking transactions to Rs 80,000 crore by end of this fiscal.
“As the only bank with a dedicated mobile payments gateway, ICICI bank has the highest success rate in a mobile banking transaction in the country,” says Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive Director, ICICI Bank. The unique payment gateway has allowed the bank to customize the app based on transactional needs. Clearly, the technological investment in upgrading the app has paid off as shopping and merchandise has recorded 700% growth in
Q1 alone, when compared against last year.
Currently, a broad range of nearly 125 services on the mobile banking app, iMobile has made it easy for customers to carry out a multitude of unique transactions including those that are high value like fund transfers. Prepaid Mobile Recharge and Shopping are also key drivers for volume. Some of the other features that have been added to iMobile include Forex, buying mutual funds on mobile for wealth customers, adding payee through iMobile for fund transfers 24×7, 365 days and personalized pre-qualified loan offers to customers on iMobile. “Our internet plus mobile transactions is 60% of our transactions. Further, over 50% of our transactions on mobile are happening beyond the top 20 cities, which means that our ability to reach out to customers in a much wider geography is significantly better and it is also flowing from the fact that we have comprehensive services. So, we have not only looked at bigger markets, but also customers in the smaller markets,” added Sabharwal.
‘Pockets’,, India’s first digital bank by ICICI Bank, has also added momentum to the growth in mobile banking user base. The digital wallet of Pockets, has over 2.5 million downloads, of which 70% are non-ICICI Bank customers. Also, for the first time in the world, ICICI Bank launched a new service for Pockets users ‘mVisa’ a mobile payment solution for consumers and merchants. With this service, users of ‘Pockets’ can also make cashless payments from their smart phones using their debit card by simply scanning a ‘mVisa’ Quick Response (QR) code at a merchant location without swiping the card at an EDC machine.
“We have partnered with Visa to introduce a payment solution that will allow cashless payments at many locations compared to that are available now. The simplicity of this technology will allow us to address the market gap and enable digital payments for an array of untapped categories such as home deliveries, cab services, and small merchants. We believe these innovative and convenient services will drive more customers to use mobile banking. In fact, already we are seeing that more customers adopt mobile banking than internet banking every month” added Sabharwal.
Going forward, ICICI Bank plans to further leverage technology to introduce digital innovations and provide a world-class banking experience to its customers. It believes in investing in innovative technology much ahead of its time and is expected to continue to focus on innovations in technology to offer unique propositions that are simple, fast and convenient for the end users.
