SBI mini savings goes mobile with Eko.
State Bank of India is by far the largest bank in India.
To give you a sense of scale, in 1H of FY 10 (Apr – Sep 2009) customers opened a staggering 7.3 million accounts (saving & checking only does not include loans, FDs / CDs etc)
Here are some key stats for the bank:
Source: SBI Investor / Analyst Presentation www.statebankofindia.com
With 51,000 mobile users, this is really a microb of a base for a bank 47m debit card holders and 1.7 billion ATM transactions per day but what is interesting is if you look at the transactions / month per user or account,mobile banking has higher use rate.
This could be driven by 2 factors:
1. The obvious higher penetration of mobile phone vs. internet users, especially across the masses
2. The accessibility & usability of mobile phones. It is easier to transact with the mobile in a crowded train, while walking on the street versus a computer.
Hopefully with the another 400m potential users out there for mobile banking and introduction of services like Eko we’ll see higher user counts and transactions in the coming year.
