HDFC Bank launches mobile app for corporate clients

The bank claims that this is the first time in the country that any lender has moved its trade finance operations to the mobile

After moving the retail end of the business to the mobile, HDFC Bank has started offering banking solutions on the go even for its wholesale banking customers. Customers can now use the mobile banking application for carrying out operations such as bank guarantee, letter of credit, remittances and bills processing, among others.

Bhavesh Zaveri, country head-operations and cash management product, HDFC Bank, said the idea behind launching Trade Finance on Mobile — a facility that will provide end-to-end digitisation of trade finance transactions, including last mile authorisation of these transactions — is to provide ease to customers and increase the speed of transactions.

“The mobile application that was launched on Thursday allows bank’s wholesale customers to authorise and complete the transaction online. We have seen good traction and we expect customers from all segments — big corporates to SMEs (small and medium enterprises) — move to mobile which will increase the overall experience and efficiency,” Zaveri added.

The bank claims this is the first time in the country that any lender has moved its trade finance operations to the mobile. With this, the bank expects the operation time for a transaction to be cut from up to one day to only 30 minutes.

According to the bank’s investor presentation, 42 per cent of the customer’s revenue mix is from wholesale while the remaining is retail. The wholesale banking business has been growing at an average of 12 per cent per annum. At present, the number of transactions per year via trade finance stands at almost two million.

This is in line with the bank’s overall strategy to move towards being a digital bank. With the increased focus on digital, as of end-March, 63 per cent of HDFC Bank’s transactions were via the internet (including mobiles) compared to 55 per cent a year ago.

According to Reserve Bank of India data, HDFC Bank recorded transactions worth Rs 6,031 crore in the year ended March. The total value of transactions on the mobile banking platform in the sector stood at Rs 16,914 crore.

By moving wholesale customers as well to the mobile, the bank expects a huge fillip to transactions via mobile banking.