?Did you know that you could now safely buy gifts from anywhere in the world, with just a few clicks on the internet,? says Ajay, a successful stock broker, to his family and friends sitting around him. “See the new painting in the hallway, my son showed me how to buy that, without having to spend hours running around the city. It saved me time and money,” he adds, beaming with pride. The impressed but nonetheless skeptical guests inquired, “Aren’t you worried about the security risks involved in making internet purchases? There are after all so many stories of fraud going around these days.” And, a few casual comments like these soon led to an enlightening discussion, where the “Gen X” as some say, had a few things to teach the rest.
RK Bakshi, general manager of Bank of India, reveals, “A glance at customer preferences show us that more than 50% of people don’t have bank accounts. And the ones who have, do only simple banking. As of availing of innovative products offered by banks, the percentage is less than 1%!”
There are two reasons for this. First being ignorance about the products and second, a lack of inclination towards availing them. A cogent argument says that it is the ignorance not the inclination (who doesn’t need speedy and timely transactions) about the products that has ensured that the percentage of customers availing of these products remain miniscule.
We at FE Investor present you a study of innovative products, which banks are currently offering, and, availing of which, can save your money, bureaucratic and official hassles, and most importantly TIME: the thing that it is of paramount importance to us all.
Card to card transfer
“Last week, my sister was in Kerala, when she got a SMS telling her that her debit card was low on funds. Since she was there the whole week and wasn’t sure if she had enough money, she asked me to help out. That’s when I used the card-to-card transfer system offered by my bank, to send her money. Within 3 days she had the extra money,” says Suraj, an IT professional. On understanding this concept, one learns that, Card-to-Card Funds transfer allows you to transfer money from your bank account to any other Visa debit or credit card, anytime, anywhere in India. One of the crucial advantages involved in this system is that you get rid of cumbersome and time-consuming DDs, cheques, and pay orders.
In a ‘Card-2-Card funds transfer you need to register the beneficiary (one-time registration) by entering the Visa card number and name of the beneficiary with your bank. Then you can make the payment to the beneficiary by entering the amount and selecting the beneficiary. You can also pay your credit card bills using Card-2-Card Funds Transfer, as long as it’s a Visa card. You enter the card number that you wish to make payments for in the beneficiary card details. It would take three working days to transfer the funds. Say it’s a debit card you are transferring the money to, it would just about cost Rs 25, along with service tax of course.
Smart money order
“The Indian postal services and some banks have also started a new money order system. You can use it any time, day or night, including holidays” adds Viral. “I just received money from my brother in London, with this service, though it does take 15 days to reach, so I got it after my birthday” he reveals. Well what Viral had been talking about was the Smart Money Order, which allows you to send a money order anytime and to any destination in India. All retail net banking customers can use this facility. To send a money order all you have to do is go to your bank’s site and give the address of the person (receiver) and amount of money to be sent.
Really, it as simple as it sounds. The money will be delivered by the Indian Postal services to the address of the beneficiary. The amount will be delivered to the receiver address within 15 working days from the date your account gets debited.
Non-resident Indians can also avail of this facility. However, for NRI customers, the sender’s address has to be a local address in India. Money will be delivered in the form of cash to the receiver’s address as given by the sender at the time of making the Smart Money Order request.
After the money order request, the postal department would send an acknowledgement of receipt of the money to the address of the sender. In case the customer is not available at the address provided by the sender, the postman will put up a notice at the receiver’s address about arrival of the money order at the post office affiliated to the receiver’s address. The receiver will then have the 7 working days to collect the amount.
In case the receiver fails to collect the money order within the stipulated time, the postal department would refund the amount to the sender’s address. However, one must note that the charges incurred by the sender will not be refunded. On a single transaction, you have a max request for Rs 5,000 with a minimum of Rs 100 and in multiples thereof. To use this facility, all it costs are the Rs 25 bank charges, the inescapable service taxes and the standard 5% of transaction amount for our postal department.
In case of non-receipt of money by the receiver, you need to write to your bank informing them the same. Your bank would then resolve these complaints with the help of the postal department. The postal department would take 10 days to reply to complaints lodged by the bank on behalf of you. In case of non-delivery, the postal department would re-send the money order manually to the receiver. This may take maximum 15 days for delivery. Money order numbers would be provided to customers for undelivered orders.
Efficiently receiving funds from other accounts
Pass? is the time of writing cheques from one cheque book of yours to the other. Today’s day and age of online money transfer is very much present in India and through many a different way. One of the simple and efficient ways to do this is by using online transfer of funds. This is a service provided by all the centralised branch services (CBS) banks in the country. Now an account holder can receive funds online from other accounts in the same or other banks by giving a mandate in his banking branch. It is just a one-time registration process where the holder has to register the account holder’s name and number, from whom he wants to receive funds. It can be in your account or the other bank’s account. Practically, this feature would be used to transfer funds to your own accounts in different banks.
Easy withdrawal of funds from your trading account
Till today, to transfer money from our share trading accounts, to our savings accounts, most of us go through the conventional way of first giving an intimation in writing for withdrawal. The customer will then get the cheque/pay order from the brokerage house in three to four days or sometimes a week, depending on the particular broker.
However, with the new feature of online withdrawal facility now available, the ease to use it, the time and effort saved, should have most people hooked to this new system. No longer do you have to beat your brokers doors to receive your own money! Why should you? After all it is your money about which we are talking.
To use this online facility to withdraw funds and credit it to one’s bank account, you only have to type in the required amount. This amount would then get credited to your bank in two to three days, saving any hassles of giving bank requests and depositing cheques in a branch. And, as easy as that you have your money at your easy disposal, just like how it should be.
Grid system for security in net transactions
Going back to how Ajay bought his safe and secure online purchases, his son explains one of the ways by which this was possible. “There is this cool new debit card I received, which has a grid with lots of alphabets and numbers on it. This acts like a special password, which changes each time depending on what the banking system asks to be entered. So only the person who knows both my passwords and has my debit card with them, can use this card for online transactions,” he tells everyone excitedly. Proudly removing his card and showing a grid with random letters and numbers on them.
Institutions are trying to improve security features on their websites, to protect customer privacy and prevent frauds. Normally there are two passwords needed while accessing online bank accounts. One is to login into the account and the other is for transaction purposes. It is advised to change the passwords regularly.
ICICI now has an additional security feature added for your online transactions. This is in the form of a new grid system on the back of the debit card. Every cell in the grid will have alphabets from A to P and numbers printed in them. When customers initiate an online transfer of funds through internet banking, the system will instruct them to enter specified numbers from the grid for authentication and verification. The transaction will be processed only after the customer enters the correct values, as instructed. This provides additional security to the customer, ensuring only someone who has both passwords and the debit card can use an online account
Netcard
“Another really safe way to do online purchasing is with the new netcard system. It is a card you create each time you want to do an online transaction, after the transaction the card is invalid and so is the number generated by it. Then for another purchase you create another card, and another number,” says Mihir, an exporter. “I know it sounds complicated, but its ridiculously simple. Even grandma can use it!” he claims.
Kotak has now launched a netcard, with which you can enjoy the joy of shopping on any website that accepts Visa cards without the worry of compromising your credit card security.
The netcard is a single use, limited validity online card created by you, from your bank account, at the time of online shopping and cannot be used after your first payment. The best part about this card is that it’s free, it’s universally accepted and has a self-destruct mechanism, which initiates within 24 to 48 hours.
iMobile Banking
Mobile banking is the next step in easy banking, and with ICICI’s new mobile application (iMobile), it is the first foray for India in mobile banking. Its called immobile and any one can download and install it for free.
“It requires some validation and can be used to pay bills, check balances, checking your demat stock holdings, schedule transfers, locate an ATM/branch, order a checkbook or get other services! It’s pretty amazing as such, but as of now, it’s only supported by symbian phones,” says Atul, a tech buff, pulling out his latest mobile, and showing those around him the iMobile feature he was talking about.
With such new moves, it seems like everyone else in the ecosystem, i.e. other banks, mobile operators, payment gateways, ISPs, certification companies, etc have to update their technology to remain competitive.
This should appeal to tech savvy folks and people with decent mobiles to start with. Mobile banking also includes SMS banking, now another common and popular tool available to us, which also basically helps us to keep track of our account status, and banking procedures while we are on the move. After such jumps forward, it really makes one wonder as to what will come in next and else can possibly left to do.
Reward point card
You are already aware of getting reward points on your credit card. Now one can get reward points without holding a credit card! A new customer reward card has been launched via which you can earn reward points when you buy a product from the banks registered merchant outlets.
After the purchase, you just have to swipe the card and the rewards points are automatically credited in your card account.
The customer reward card is a normal swipe card with no additional features of credit or cash withdrawal facility. The customer has to go through the conventional way of buying a product and can pay by cash, cheque or card. Thereafter the card has to be swiped to earn reward points. You will get a transaction slip for proof purposes.
The rewards points system works in a similar fashion as credit cards. The main distinction is in redeeming points. On earning sufficient point’s in your card it can be redeemed online. However, since over a period of time the number of merchants goes on increasing the usage and benefits increase as well. The card and reward points come free of cost, as there are no service charges or annual fees to buy the card.
The cardholder can choose the gift specified on the website. This card is an additional benefit over and above the credit card as one can get reward points on credit card and also the customer reward card.
The glass is half full
India has one of the best banking services available around the globe. While we may be lacking behind in many avenues, technology, banking products, and tools to make our life simpler is the one thing we are really good at.
Things like free fund transfers, free any ATM usage, unlimited calls to customer care, integration of various services like MFs, stock trading, bill payment, loans, and credit cards are all available to us so easily. In comparison, US banks like ADP have restrictions like 2 ATM transactions per month, 2 free calls to customer care per month, $1.5 charge for balance inquiry, among others.
This already shows that Indian technology has evolved at a fast and efficient rate, with higher regards to customer care than banks in most other nations. Keeping this in mind, if one continues to remain ignorant and weary of using the wonderful facilities available to us, we will only have our selves to blame for time and opportunities lost.
Using these tools to the maximum, and taking a little more interest in these small gifts provided to us by our growing economy will help us surge ahead in this highly complex but yet simple enough, I-world. As far as banking technology and tools are concerned, the glass is already half full, so all we can urge India to do is, at least start sipping the water.
