ICICI Bank looks to grow mobile banking transactions by 500% to Rs 80,000 cr in FY16

The bank recorded transactions worth Rs 16,000 cr via mobile banking platform in FY15

ICICI Bank, the country’s largest private sector lender, has charted out an ambitious plan to grow its mobile banking transactions by up to 500 per cent by the end of this financial year.

According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, in FY15, transactions worth Rs 16,000 crore were recorded via the bank’s mobile banking platform. Rajiv Sabharwal, executive director, ICICI Bank, explained the lender is optimistic about the growth plans, considering that in the first three months, the volume of transactions recorded on the mobile banking platform was equal to what the bank had recorded in the last financial year.

Apart from growing transactions on mobile banking, the bank is confident of doubling the number of customers to 10 million from the current five million.



“Acquiring customers on mobile banking is faster than on internet. We are acquiring about five million customers on the digital platform every month. Of this 300,000 is for mobile and 200,000 is on the internet platform. The faster adoption of mobile banking is a result of smartphones becoming cheaper and the ability to quickly adopt newer technologies among Indians,” Sabharwal added.

Considering the number of new customer additions is higher for mobile than internet, ICICI Bank believes by the end of this year, there might be more customers on the mobile platform than on the internet. At present, the average ticket size of transactions via mobile banking is at Rs 5,000. Currently, close to 60 per cent of the bank’s transactions are carried out on the internet and mobile banking channels, Sabharwal said.

With this in view, the lender has upgraded its mobile banking application and has increased the number of offerings from 55 to 110. The bank claims the number of services it offers on its app is the most by any other lender in the country. By the end of this year, they are looking at increasing the number of services on the app to 200.

Apart from allowing cardless cash withdrawal and direct calls to the bank’s call centre, ICICI Bank has also allowed integration with Google That will allow customers to get alerts and notifications on the payment due date of their credit card, maturity of their fixed deposits, etc.

Shifting to the digital medium makes sense for the banks as well as the customer. For customers, it spells convenience and for the bank it brings down the cost of transactions. Sabharwal explained the cost for incremental customer adoption on the digital platform was one-tenth of the cost incurred on the physical platform.

Several other lenders such as HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and State Bank of India, among others, have upped their focus on the digital platform, particularly on mobile banking.

For the entire industry, transactions worth Rs 16,914 crore were recorded on mobile phones in March 2015, up from Rs 3,407 crore in the corresponding month a year ago.