Disruptive technologies such as SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) are carving a new path of innovation in banking functions and strategy, according to a CII-PwC survey “Connecting the dots: wiring business, technology and operations, which was released at the CII Banking Technology Summit here on Wednesday.
About 63 per cent of banking survey respondents confirms that their bank used social media campaigns quite frequently to get leads. Fifty per cent said they were using social media aggregators to help interpret unstructured data. “This implies that social media has the power to garner new business and attract new customers,” said the survey report.
Around 86 per cent said that they had already deployed mobile banking. Only 14 per cent said that they were still in the initial stages of the launch. “Mobile telephony has become ubiquitous, with a penetration of around three quarters of the population of the country. It is a well acknowledged fact that the mobile platform is being used to a large extent by customers.”
The report said that all banks agreed that the maximum usage of this channel was to view account details such as account balance, mini statement and cheque status. This is followed by other transactions such as money transfers, utility payments and mobile payments.
At present, around 78 banks offer mobile banking services. The use of smart phones and tablets has also helped increase the traffic on mobile banking transactions. “However, there still remains scope for growth.” Some challenges associated with the adoption of mobile technology are lack of awareness and change in mindset, inability to sync the mobile number with the account number, features of the handset and inconsistent revenue-sharing models.
Banks are seen experimenting with various social media channels to build their brand equity, gauge which stream will actually yield more visibility and help promote the organisations’ image, said the report.
As compared to public sector banks, private sector and foreign banks have adopted social media more openly and integrated it as a part of their strategy. It is regarded not only as a means to reach out to customers but also to engage with them on a continual basis by providing the latest updates, offers, campaigns, facilitate transactions such as booking movie tickets, fund transfers, addressing grievances and the like.
The social media gambit is targeted towards the youth who are found to be spending a large amount of time online. Consequently, banks find it a great way to increase their visibility.
