SBI to launch mobile banking service soon
Public sector lender State Bank of India will tie up with a domestic firm to roll out its mobile banking services within a month, a senior bank official said. He added that the technology platform is ready for the launch of the mobile banking service. and they have finalised a domestic firm as their partner to roll out the product. SBI has finalised a technology partner to take the services to its nearly one crore customers pan-India, he said.
The bank will join a handful of banking majors, including Standard Chartered Bank, Barclays, Union Bank and Yes Bank, who are already active in this space. Initially, the bank plans to offer basic banking services to its customers. These would include money transfer, account status enquiry and cheque book order, while other services such as bill payments and buying movie and travel tickets would be introduced later, he said. “Transaction costs of our customers will come down. Besides, it will also enable them to perform their transactions faster,” the official said.
SBI’s entry into mobile banking is also expected to give a fillip to the government’s ongoing efforts to achieve financial inclusion, given the large customer base of the bank and its extensive reach in rural areas. State Bank, the country’s largest lender, presently, has over 10,000 branches across the country. It opened 954 branches last fiscal (FY 08) and plans to add an additional 2,000 branches this fiscal, which when completed, would take its branch network in the country to around 12,000, the official said.
Tags: banking services, mobile banking, SBI