Smaller and newer banks have taken the lead in pushing the government’s digital economy drive, rolling out a slew of innovative digital banking products much faster than traditional banks to expand their footprints.
Kerala-based Federal Bank, for instance, has over the last few months launched several solutions that enable merchants — both small and large — to accept digital payments using their existing infrastructure without spending additional money on new devices or applications.
Similarly, IDFC Bank was the first to launch Aadhaar-enabled biometric payment even before Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagged it off on April 14.
For old banks, digital technology is one more way of reaching out to the existing customer, while for new banks digital is the heart of the strategy for reaching out to all customers, said Aruna Sundararajan, secretary at the ministry of electronics and IT (MeitY).
Sundararajan, who is leading the Digital Payments Mission and driving the target of touching 25 billion digital transactions this year, said the government is telling banks to adopt strategies that telecom companies adopted to grow from 50 million subscribers to 500 million.
Federal Bank also launched selfiebased account opening. IDFC Bank, which received its banking licence only in 2015, launched Aadhaar-based e-KYC to speed up account opening. The bank already has a customer base of close to 1.4 million customers, of which more than 4,00,000 customers have been acquired organically.
By Baishakhi Dutta
