ICICI Bank tops mobile banking transactions list

Aims to raise transactions fivefold in FY16 from last year

ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector lender, has outpaced its peers to record the highest number of mobile banking transactions. According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, the lender recorded transactions worth Rs 6,885.36 crore in July, higher than any other bank.

In June, too, ICICI Bank had recorded the highest amount of transactions through mobile at Rs 6,160.18 crore.

Earlier, the top slot was occupied by HDFC Bank, which currently holds the second position, followed by Axis Bank and then State Bank of India.

ICICI Bank’s aggressive growth in the mobile banking space is in line with the ambitious target that it had laid out earlier this year to grow its mobile banking transactions fivefold in FY16, compared with the previous financial year.

In FY15, transactions worth Rs 16,000 crore were recorded via the bank’s mobile banking platform, which the lender wants to grow to Rs 80,000 crore in FY16.

Rajiv Sabharwal, executive director at ICICI Bank, said the bank would achieve this number as it had seen a jump not only in value but also in volume of transactions. “The total amount of transactions ICICI Bank recorded in the last financial year has been achieved in the first quarter of FY16. There are a lot of new customers onboarding every month. In fact, a majority of the transactions are happening beyond the top 20 cities.”

The bank has been pushing its digital strategy and has launched several initiatives, including revamp of mobile banking application, online paperless account opening for non-resident Indian customers in the US and remittances through Facebook. Apart from the rise in value and volume of transactions, the lender has also seen more number of customers onboarding on the mobile platform than internet.

Sabharwal added the average ticket size of the transaction now stands at Rs 13,000 and 62 per cent of the transactions are happening via the digital medium (internet and mobile).

"We are looking at an upgradation of the mobile banking platform. We also want to introduce a single click shopping and a number of other things. There is significant opportunity to add more and more features in the digital space," said Sabharwal.
 

Correction: An earlier version of this story published on October 20, had wrongly listed Citibank instead of Kotak Mahindra Bank. The correct order is ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Kotak Mahindra Bank's mobile transactions grew from Rs 439 cr in July 2014 to Rs 1713 cr in July 2015. The error is regretted.