Mobile banking may become most preferred channel, says SBI's Rajnish Kumar

State Bank of India (SBI) chairman Rajnish Kumar said on Wednesday that mobile banking may become the most preferred banking channel, even more than internet banking, in the days to come.

Out of 100 transactions at SBI, only 9 transactions are being made in branches. While transactions at ATMs at the time of demonetisation were around 55 per cent, now they are down to around 30 per cent and digital, mobile banking has seen a rise from 25-30 to 55 per cent now. Going ahead it is going to be internet banking and mobile banking that will flourish, Kumar said delivering a key note address at the Global Fintech Fest.

However, he cautioned that in a country like India, there is a need for both physical presence and digital presence of banks. And, any institution, or bank, which is not investing enough resources, both in terms of manpower as well as the financial investment in latest technology, will not be able to survive.

He further said, interventions by the likes of Google, WhatsApp, and Facebook are changing the way transaction banking, including small value lending and P2P lending, is done in India.

Kumar said, the direct benefit transfers under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna, wherein Rs 500 was to be transferred to as many as 120 million women’s Jan Dhan bank accounts happened smoothly because of the capability which the banks have developed to handle DBTs and the critical role played by bank mitras, helped by technological interventions.

SBI alone has 22,000 branches and 62,000 customer service points managed by the bank mitras.

The path ahead for institutions, Kumar said, lies in end to end digital onboarding of customers through pre-approval, e-sign, video-KYC. Advanced analytics-driven underwriting is going to help credit worthy customers meet their needs.