The Hindu Business Line : Barclays offers service through mobile phone

A person who has an account with the bank can transfer money to another account holder, pay credit card or utility bills and check his balance using the mobile phone. Over time, more financial transactions would be possible, such as purchase of train and air tickets and even making payments at shopping malls, Mr Suresh Gurumani, Head (Retail Banking), Barclays Bank, told a press conference here.

Barclays customers can perform account enquiries and financial transactions by simply dialling *598 *1#. They will then be guided through a mobile-based menu where they will be able to choose from a number of options. Barclays charges Rs 30 a month for the service. The service is open to all deposit-holders of the bank.

Mr Gurumani said that a customer could even have a ‘zero minimum balance’ in his savings account.

At present, this service is available on all GSM handsets on the networks of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea in 40 cities, but it will be soon extended to other telecom service providers also, Mr Gurumani said.

Few branch model

Barclays began commercial banking operations last year and has five branches. It prefers to work through ‘banking correspondents’ — business entities that help a bank in customer acquisition and service. At present, it has 100,000 deposit/loan customers and 500,000 credit card customers.

Customer acquisition

This few-branch model necessarily needs to use technology to lure more customers — the ‘Hello Money’ service is a means towards customer acquisition, Mr Gurumani said. This is Barclays’ first launch of this service globally.

More Stories on : Foreign Banks | New Products & Services | M-Commerce

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Rupee weakens on stock market crash, oil prices

Dollar inflows cushion rupee fall

Higher spreads, larger pool to drive used car loans segment

SBH to raise Rs 900 cr

Barclays offers service through mobile phone

Bond prices slip on profit booking

Call rates unchanged

Pension scheme: Decision on actuarial firms likely next week

SBI's one day token strike

United Bank to tie up with Kotak Mahindra

Union Bank ties up with IDBI Capital to offer online trading

Bankers remain optimistic