State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest commercial bank, continues to maintain its leading position in the mobile banking space, according to RBI data. The bank has seen around 46% growth in its mobile customer base in 2014 compared to the preceding year. In 2014, the mobile banking customers of the bank jumped to 1.25 crore as against 85.78 lakh customers in 2013.
SBI in a release said, "the rise in volumes in mobile banking at SBI reflects the bank's commitment towards contributing financial inclusion. SBI, with over 1.25 crore registered mobile banking customers, remains the undisputed market leader in this segment and way ahead of the nearest competitor in the market."
As a part of financial inclusion programme, SBI created more awareness amongst its retail and regional customer base. As a result, in CY 2014 SBI registered about 70% of the customer from non-metros. The average transaction per customer was Rs 7,052 which showed more retail customers are using the mobile banking facility. Mobile banking services of SBI can be availed by the customers irrespective of the mobile handsets used by them.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, chairman, State Bank of India, said, "India has just witnessed the launch of message-banking. We are confident that once this is understood by people, there will be an explosion of banking activities in the mobile space. This is what the future of banking holds".
SBI has been aggressive about migration of customers to direct channels, and mobile banking service is an important part of this strategy, said Bhattacharya. At present, customers can access the bank through "State Bank Anywhere" - the bank's Smartphone app which is integrated with Internet banking. The service which is expected to be used by the masses is "State Bank Freedom", which can be accessed by all kinds of phones.
"Mobile banking will also play a large part in the role of the yet-to-be-launched payment banks with which SBI plans to have tie-ups", Bhattacharya added.
The aggressive promotion of alternative channels is part of SBI's strategy to decongest branches which is expected to increase, as the bank has opened over 1.85 crore new accounts under the Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana.
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