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On the move: Bank of Punjab ready for mobile banking
Neeraja Kumar
New Delhi, July 24: Bank of Punjab has developed a Short Messaging System (SMS)-based mobile banking solution. The solution, which is Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) enabled, was launched by Spice Telecom in Chandigarh last week, says Tejbir Singh, executive director, Bank of Punjab.According to him, the company has also deployed a similar mobile banking solutions for the two Delhi cellular operators - Bharti Cellular and Essar, which will be launched by the two operators within the month. It is also setting up a bridge for integrating the solution with the Escotel network, he added. "We are concentrating on developing mobile banking solutions for the operators in north and west India right now. Next we plan to target the operators in Mumbai and Ahemdabad," adds Singh. The solution enables the cellular subscribers to make normal banking enquiries, order fund transfer, and pay cellphone, MTNL, and electricity bills, etc, says Singh.Meanwhile, the company has also launched an Internet banking solution. It has also put up a network of offsite ATMs, which constitute of interactive kiosks and ATMs linked with a 24 hour customer care call centre. "They are well equipped to take care of all routine banking requirements of customers from balance enquiry to transfer of funds. For human intervention, the customers can call up the customer care center either from the kiosk or from the comforts of their home," adds Singh. According to Singh, utility bills are going to be a very big business and will provide an opportunity for system integration. When you look at a manual system of payment, costs are very high, but the bill amount does not justify the cost of settling the bill. For instance, if you incur costs of Rs 50 to realize money from a Rs 500 bill, it does not make economic sense. However, for electronic transaction of money, specially bill payments, banks can put up systems, which can become very cost efficient."More than the revenue generation, at this present moment, automated electronic transactions amount to huge savings, thereby increasing productivity. For instance, conducting banking transactions over the Internet, saves us nearly 90 per cent of the cost, which would have otherwise been incurred over a manual system. ATM's save us about 50 per cent of the cost," says Singh.To ward of unauthorized access, Bank of Punjab's Internet banking solution has a three-tier system, apart from the usual user name and password to protect the transactions. This includes, a Verisign certification to secure the site, a firewall around the server to ward off unauthorized entry, and a built in Secured Socket Layer (SSL) security which ensures 128-bit encryption for every transaction. "Every transaction is encrypted and a random key is generated, much like the Personal Identification Number (PIN), which can be used to decrypt the information. To protect the transaction from internal hackers, the key is also entered in the system in an encrypted the format," added Singh. Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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