Banking will soon be very different from what it is today. Disruptive technologies that include Internet, video, social media and mobile, are all becoming potent enablers of enhanced customer experience and new product expectations.

Bankers understand this and are increasingly investing in technologies, notes Arindam Mukherjee, Head (Banking and Financial Services), Cisco India and SAARC, during an interaction with BusinessLine . Excerpts:

The educated lot probably understand Internet of Everything (IoE). What about the others?

Financial inclusion is becoming a top priority for banks and we at Cisco believe that branchless banking will be instrumental in achieving this in India.

Further, the Centre’s Digital India campaign envisions that a mobile phone and bank account would enable participation in digital and financial space at an individual level.

According to latest estimates, the number of customers using mobile for banking transactions have tripled in the last two years, resulting in an 11-fold increase in the cumulative value of banking transactions.

The potential though for leveraging the mobile banking technology offering is largely untapped.

The Centre’s Jan Dhan Yojana is expected to give an incremental push to the number and volume of mobile banking transactions.

Mobile penetration is high in India. But how many use the mobile for bill payments or cash transfer?

Cisco’s latest Visual Networking Index Mobile forecast reveals that India will have 651 million smart phones, 18.7 million tablets by 2019.

Mobile banking, if implemented in the right way, will ensure that users benefit from services such as receiving credit, payments and transfers, account opening and loan approvals.

While mobile penetration is huge, service offerings remain largely untapped.

Does it mean customers will endorse hi-tech banking services to relationship banking experience?

Relationships are critical in any banking transaction, particularly in an industry that has very little product differentiation. Relationships and customer service will play a crucial role. Today, banks understand the importance of building relationships and are increasingly adapting to changing needs and demands of customers.

Present day retail banking customers are tech-savvy; they use the social and mobile platform extensively to exchange information – both personal and professional – and demand an “always connect” mode across devices of their choice.

Therefore, banks need to deploy a true omni-channel approach to differentiate between transactions that need to be made fast as well as in a convenient manner, and interactions – personalised and media-rich – regardless of the channel.

This differentiation will help banks deliver financial advice and banking services through the virtual and physical channels.

What should banks do to succeed in this digital environment?

Customers look for a user-friendly, seamless experience. Banks should therefore embrace more complexity, digitise the processes and converge the physical world with the virtual.

As customers use different devices across different networks for financial transactions, banks need to create an agile business and technology architecture to place themselves in a competitively advantageous position.

Banks should be able to offer the same level of delivery and enhanced customer experience through multiple touch points, without compromising on compliance and regulatory related issues for managing sensitive information.

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