Time for a fresh look: The bank branch is undergoing a sea change

Banks are now turning to reposition the manner in which they acquire customers, report Abhijit Lele and Raghu Mohan

Did you know that 73 per cent of the 4,518 new branches that opened in FY19 (the latest year for which systemic data are available) are in urban, semi-urban or tier-3 cities? This is higher than the 62.3 per cent seen in FY17, when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) set its branch rationalisation policy in motion. You may mistakenly interpret this to mean that banks are ignoring the hinterland.
 

Banks now ride on what is defined as a “banking outlet”. This is a fixed-point service unit, manned by either the bank’s staff or its business correspondent (BC), where all