Banks are witnessing a sharp rise in online transactions as an increasing number of customers log on to the internet to pay their utility bills. Telephone bills, mainly mobile bills, are primarily driving the transactions, followed by insurance premiums and electricity bills.

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Online payments and transfer of funds from one bank to another also contributed to a 100 per cent year-on-year growth in online transactions. Online transactions are going up by 10-12 per cent every month, shows data by Billdesk, which facilitates payment of bills over internet.

According to banks, customers are turning to online transactions as these are convenient and save time. However, except for insurance, the size of online bills paid is not very large. Most people using online banking are technologically savvy customers working in multinational companies or BPOs in cities like Bangalore and Gurgaon.

“People making online payments have a busy lifestyle. In most cases, both husband and wife are working and weekends are precious for them. We have around 5,000 bills being paid online every month. One in five customers pays his bill online,” said Rajiv Rai, head, direct channels, private and business clients, Deutsche Bank India.

This year, Deutsche Bank is expecting a 25-40 per cent growth in online payment of utility and insurance bills, compared with 60 per cent growth last year, while the industry may grow 25 per cent. Rai said the growth would come down because customers who wanted to pay online were already paying.

Ramnath Pradeep, executive director, Central Bank of India, said the bank would launch the online bill payment facility in the next 10 days as a large number of its customers were registered for internet banking. He said the facility would bring down the cost for the bank as it would charge a fee from companies (billers) coming on the network.

An average Indian household in cities pays about 50 bills annually. An individual saves about 80 hours in a year by e-billing, with the business growing 200 per cent and its size expected to touch 6.5 million by 2008-09 from the then level of 1.9 million, a survey by Assocham had found last year.

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