VERY soon you would never need to go to your bank for your transactions. If you have access to a computer, you can access your banker and conduct retail transactions at the press of a few keys, right from your living room. ICICI Bank, one of India's leading private sector banks, went online last week, offering, for the first time in the history of Indian banking, full-fledged Internet banking services.
Although banking sites are not uncommon on the Net—there are about 1,240 banking websites from around 100 banks worldwide till date—most of the banksites primarily offer a 'query only' or 'read only' service for prospective customers.
From October 10, Indian customers would not only be able to open accounts through the Net but can also opt to conduct regular transactions like money transfer, personal account management and make payments, by simply accessing the ICICI website—Infinity—at www.icicibank.com on the Net. This sort of service is already available in the developed countries, and is fast gaining ground worldwide. In the Asia-Pacific area, there are about 151 retail banking sites available now.
"The days of conventional banking services in 'brick and mortar' banks are fast fading out, giving way to new, faster methods of banking. Already, a number of alternate channels are available in phone banking, ATMs and smart cards. But Internet banking is likely to become the most accepted and popular modes of banking in the future because of its informal and easy accessibility," says Suresh Nanda, executive vice-president of ICICI Banking Corporation.
Internet banking, he says, would cut out all physical barriers between the customer and the banker—travel, transport, working hours—and provide instant and custo-mised banking services. Says Nanda: "With Internet banking, the bank would be just a Control X away from the customer."
While Internet banking across the world started only around 1993-94, ICICI Bank's tryst with the Net started in February 1996 when its query service was first put on the Net. This, says Nanda, "was introduced to have people look at us and obviously, our prime aim was NRIs—people who had access to computers and the Net at that point of time." The bank used the site to publish relevant information about investors and NRIs, profile of the bank and commentaries on financial developments. Recently, it used the site to download about 2,500 applications for its public issue. The response was beyond expectation and made way for fullscale Internet banking.
But how would Internet banking be different? In effect, it would mean that a customer, sitting in any part of the world, would now be able to open an account in any part of India and access it through the Net. He would also be able to get cheque books and passbooks and monitor his account. The bank is negotiating with Internet security consultants to devise a system to provide reliable security to account-holders.
The service will be made operational in four phases. The first, beginning October 10, will introduce customers to Internet banking and register customers. The second phase would give account and transactions-related information and provide other retail banking services like issue of cheque books. The third phase would offer facilities for fund transfer and other services—open fixed deposit accounts and corporate banking. Phase four would concentrate on utilities like third party payments, cash management and establishment of LCs.
With the growing popularity of the Internet, Indians, so used to bottlenecks in banks, might just have a respite.
