Listening to Clients of Mobile Banking in India
This note explores clients’ reasons for adopting mobile banking (m-banking) services and their impact on clients’ savings practices.
The note is based on research conducted by MicroSave at Eko India, an m-banking implementation in India. Study findings indicate that most of the early adopters of m-banking in urban areas had some previous banking experience. Their reasons for choosing m-banking include its convenience and ease of use, trust in the m-banking agent or bank providing the service, and the relaxed know-your-customer norms and easy documentation.
M-banking service providers can improve revenues and offer greater value to customers by diversifying the range of services to encourage mass uptake and increased usage of accounts. When asked about savings using Eko, clients reported that they:
- Save regularly at Eko and use traditional bank accounts less frequently than before;
- Take much less time to travel to Eko counters than to traditional bank branches;
- Save more frequently, as and when they have cash in hand, thus converting small amounts of extra cash into savings;
- Would like m-banking to offer services such as check deposit facility, remittances, passbook or account statements and ATMs.
