Bankers looking at innovative ways of reducing footfalls

Account holders of many banks can now look forward to doing their transactions without visiting their branches. The private sector as well as the public sector banks are looking at innovative ways including fund transfer to other banks via ATMs or online banking to reduce footfalls at branches.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, for instance, has introduced two new schemes in this regard namely Mail Money and KayPay. Under Mail Money, consumers can transfer funds to any account without knowing the account number or IFSC code of the person who wants to receive the funds.

The account holder just needs to know the email id of the beneficiary and the funds can be transferred via internet banking. Under KayPay, which has been launched with Facebook, fund transfers can be made by just logging in through your facebook account.

The bank says that the real purpose behind introducing these innovations is to increase engagements by its account holders with the banks.

“The digital channels do reduce transaction costs for banks. However, the real benefit that we see is that we get our customers more engaged with us through these platforms,”Kotak Mahindra Bank Executive Vice-President (Digital Initiatives) Deepak Sharma told Deccan Herald.

Sharma, however, clarified that these moves are not mainly meant to move customers from transacting at branches.

According to reports, some banks including Yes Bank and Union Bank of India have introduced inter bank fund transfer via ATMs. An email sent to Yes Bank in this regard was unanswered till the time of going to press.

However, not all seem to be in favour of excess technology being introduced by banks. According to All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) Vice-President Vishwas Utagi, banks are just exploiting customers in the name of technology introduction.
DH News Service