ICICI Bank says 5% of total transactions done via mobile phone

The bank is witnessing a three times growth on a y-o-y basis on mobile transactions

Amid reservations expressed by the Reserve Bank on slow pick-up of mobile banking, country's largest private lender ICICI Bank today said it is witnessing a huge growth in adoption and the stream now constitutes for up to 5% of overall transactions.

"We are witnessing a three times growth on a year-on-year basis on mobile transactions. They account for 7-10% of the total digital channel and are growing in multiples," bank's head of digital channels Abonty Banerjee told reporters.

She said the digital channel, including mobile and the Internet, accounts for over half of its overall transactions at present, and is expected to grow much more. The bank said that over 2 million of its customers are active users of its various mobile apps for transacting with the bank.

Last week, RBI deputy governor HR Khan had chided lenders for being lax about the cost-effective ways of transacting.

"If you see the data, it is growing but not the way it should be catching up...We still do not have proper usage. There is an active need for collaboration between the bank and telecom companies," Khan had said at an industry summit here.

The city-based bank today launched four new mobile applications, including one that enables its wealth and non-resident Indian customers to video chat with an executive for resolving banking queries and get information related to products.

"With these new mobile banking applications, we will offer our customers a unique and unparallelled experience in their banking interaction. I believe these apps will further propel growth of mobile banking," bank's Chief Executive and Managing Director Chanda Kochhar said in a statement.

The bank also launched a dedicated app through which a customer can "pre-process" a transaction and then visit a bank, through which she saves time at the bank branch, Banerjee said.

Customers can carry out many transactions, including cash deposits and withdrawals, request for demand drafts, updating personal information like communication address, PAN and email id among others, through the app.

It also launched a store which will act as an aggregator of all the mobile applications of the ICICI Group for customer convenience.