Despite being offered as a freebie, mobile banking has been unable to make inroads into India’s huge urban subscriber base of over 170 million.

Now banks have once-again woken up to its potential. What’s the fresh brouhaha over this service that has actually had few takers in India? Manish k. Pandey on a fact finding mission...

Atul Pathak, a 36-year-old who works as senior marketing manager with a leading telecom service provider, boasts of being a part of that rare breed of professionals (of course, in his age group) who have always acted as vanguards when it comes to the use of technological innovations. In fact, he says it has almost been two years now since he last visited his bank for a financial transaction. Thanks to features like internet banking, he’s been able to save himself from the ritual of queuing up at banks apart from other banking hassles.

So, when mobile banking was launched in India a couple of years back, he was among the first few enthusiasts to take it up with a smile. But, his smooth smile vanished soon enough thanks to an over dose of effort on his part to get a hang of this two-year-old offering by his bank, which appears just as alien to him. “I am still ambiguous about this new channel, its service offerings and smooth processing,” says a visibly confused Pathak.

Even Akanksha Roy, a new-age advertising professional who too is a technology freak like Pathak, is not much of a mobile banking enthusiast. However, her reasons for not being one are little different from that of Pathak’s. “I am still not comfortable with the idea of paying my bills through mobile as I feel these transactions are more vulnerable to frauds,” she tells 4Ps B&M. No doubt, tech-freaks like Atul and Akanksha, or for that matter most of them, have found themselves facing a similar predicament at some point of time when it comes to the use of mobile banking channel. Be it ambiguity towards the service offering or the confusion regarding security threats, most of these tech-savvy consumers still find themselves in the same shoe.

Perhaps, this is the reason why despite being offered as a freebee, mobile banking has not really taken off among the huge urban mobile subscriber base of over 170 million in the country. “The registered user base for mobile banking is approximately 25 million or 7% of total subscriber base in India. In fact, the active user base for such service is as low as 10% of total registered base, which is a negligible number when compared to the huge Indian mobile subscriber base,” agrees Prathima Rajan, Analyst, Celent.

So, what is it that has prompted banks to suddenly go gung ho over a service offering that actually has few takers? Lately, there has been a lot of buzz about mobile banking, which offers twin promises of ubiquity and low cost. Apart from this, mobile banking is being considered as the service of the future, as such it becomes all the more important for banks, technology service providers, application providers, et al, to work together to develop a healthy mobile banking ecosystem in the country. “Phone banking is a very common phenomenon in the global banking world and in India bankers who are not providing such facilities are actually depriving consumers of technological advancements,” avers Rana Kapoor, Managing Director & CEO, YES Bank, which has recently launched mobile banking services in association with Obopay.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2010.

An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri and Arindam chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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