Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
2011 DECLARATION
I, PRABHAT KUMAR do hereby declare that the Dissertation report titled:
Is a genuine research work undertaken by me and it has not been published anywhere earlier.
It has been completed under the guidance of Mrs. Rachna Sexena (Faculty), IIMS Bareilly.
Date: Place:
(PRABHAT KUMAR)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Every work requires a diligent effort not only on the part of the person directly involved in the successful completion of the work but also the ones who are willing to help and guidance. In the same regards, I would like to thank my Faculty Guide, Mrs. Rachna Sexena who has been a constant support in the working of the project.
Furthermore, I would like to express my gratitude to the employees of ICICI Bank who helped me towards the successful completion of this dissertation and without whose help, the completion of this report would not have been possible.
(PRABHAT KUMAR)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 6: Conclusion
Chapter 8: References
Annexure: Question
Home Loans Credit Cards Auto Loans
Savings Account
INTRODUCTION
Retail Banking
Retail banking is typical mass-market banking where individual customers use local branches of larger commercial banks. Services offered include: savings and checking accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, credit cards, and so forth.
Before Internet era, consumers largely selected their banks based on how convenient the location of banks branches was to their homes or offices. With the Advent of new technologies in the business of bank, such as Internet banking and ATMs, now customers
can freely chose any bank for their transactions. Thus the customer base of banks has increased, and so has the choices of customers for selecting the banks.
This is just the beginning of the story. Due to globalization a new generation of private sector banks and many foreign banks have also entered the market and they have brought with them several useful and innovative products. Due to forced competition, public sector banks are also becoming more technology savvy and customer oriented.
Bankers have been increasingly shifting focus to retail banking to increase profitability and reduce delinquency rates. Customer shifting, cost pressure and increased competition are some of the reasons for this shift in focus. Retailing is now favored because of better norms, lesser asset quality problem and low NPA. Further it offers many opportunities and potential for credit expansion.
The size of the retail market is Rs 50,000 crore which includes credit card spending of Rs10,000 crore. The markets for the other goods are Housing loan at Rs 25,000 crore (30% CAGR), Personal Loan at Rs 4000 crore (10-15% CAGR) and auto loans at Rs75,000 crore (5% CAGR)
Moreover, Non-traditional competition, market consolidation, new technology, and the proliferation of the Internet are changing the competitive landscape of the retail banking industry. Today retail banking sector is characterized by following: Multiple products (deposits, credit cards, insurance, investments and securities) Multiple channels of distribution (call center, branch, Internet and kiosk) Multiple customer groups (consumer, small business, and corporate) Today, the customers have many expectations from bank such as (i) Service at reduced cost (ii) Service Anytime Anywhere (iii) Personalized Service With increased number of banks, products and services and practically nil switching costs, customers are easily switching banks whenever they find better services and products. Banks are finding it tough to get new customers and more importantly retain existing customers.
According to a research by Reichheld and Sasser in the Harvard Business Review, 5% increase in customer retention can increase profitability by 35% in banking business, 50% in insurance and brokerage, and 125% in the consumer credit card market. Therefore banks are now stressing on retaining customers and increasing
market share.
2. Bankers invested in Internet banking, believing that the Internet was a lower-cost delivery channel and a way to increase sales. Studies have now shown, however, that the primary value of offering Internet banking services lies in the increased retention of highly valued customer segments. Again customer satisfaction drives the value proposition.
Thus, banks need to retain existing customers with enhanced personalized services and products, which best suits their needs and satisfies them the most.
There are two main reasons behind this. Firstly, it is now undeniable that the face of the Indian consumer is changing. This is reflected in a change in the urban household income pattern. The direct fallout of such a change will be the consumption patterns and hence the banking habits of Indians, which will now be skewed towards Retail products.
At the same time, India compares pretty poorly with the other economies of the world that are now becoming comparable in terms of spending patterns with the opening up of our economy. For instance, while the total outstanding Retail loans in Taiwan is around 41% of GDP, the figure in India stands at less than 5%. The comparison with the West is even more staggering. Another comparison that is natural when comparing Retail sectors is the use of credit cards. Here also, the potential lies in the fact that of all the consumer expenditure in India in 2001, less than 1% was through plastic, the corresponding US figure standing at 18%.
spreading their operations into segments like self- employed and the semi-urban rich, it is an open secret that the big city Indian yuppies form the most profitable segment. Overdependence on this segment is bound to bring in inflexibility in the business.
Finally, the vast geographical and cultural diversity of the country makes credit policy formulation a tough job and it simply cannot be dictated from a Wall Street or a Singapore boardroom! All these add up to the unattractiveness of the Indian retail market to the foreign players. So over the past few years, in spite of the entry of MNCs in many industries, Retail Banking has seen a flurry of panicky exits. Fewer than 40 remain in India and their share of total bank assets currently 7.2% is falling. Those that remain might be thought to be likely buyers of Indian banks. Yet Citibank, HSBC and Standard Charteredall in India for more than a century, and with relatively large retail networksseem to have no pressing need to acquire a local bank. Established foreign banks have preferred to take over customers or businesses from other foreign banks that want to leave. Thus HSBC, in recent years, has acquired customers from France's BNP, Germany's Deutsche Bank and Japan's Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi. ABN Amro took over Bank of America's retail business.
nationalization of the Banking System. A growing market can never be an alibi for lack of innovation. Indian banks have shown little or no interest in innovative tailor-made products. They have often tried to copy process designs that have been tested, albeit successfully, in the West.
Each economic culture has its own traits and one who successfully adapts those to the business is the eventual winner. A case in point is the successful implementation of micro-credit networks in Bangladesh. Positioning a bank as a tech-savvy financial vendor in a country where Internet penetration is an abysmal 1.65% can only add to the overleveraging as pointed out earlier. The focus of the sector should remain in macroeconomic wealth creation and not increasing the per capita indebtedness that will do little but add to the NPA burden. Retail Banking in India has to be developed in the Indian way, notwithstanding the long queues in front of the teller counter in the SBI Joka branch.
In the words of Chanda Kochchar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank Fast growth in retail is not because of sheer passion for numbers, Rather, its the result of strategic thinking. Push retail growth by upping market shares and tapping new customers. Lower credit risk by tighter controls and better analysis
Leverage balance sheet strength and strong corporate relationships Follow the customer worldwide and build scalable model for global rollout.
I. PUSH RETAIL GROWTH BY UPPING MARKET SHARES AND TAPPING NEW CUSTOMERS.
The key dimensions of ICICIs retail strategy for increasing its market share are: Innovative products Parity pricing Customer convenience through a vast range of delivery channels. Operational efficiencies, strong processes and customer focus. Cross-selling of the entire range of credit and investment products and banking services to existing customers is a critical aspect of our retail strategy. Since initial investments are high in Retail, fast growth and thereby economies of scale
help ICICI make profits much earlier. And today, the banks incremental retail business is 30% the size of the industry and its operating costs are said to be among the lowest. While the distribution network enables the bank to add numbers, stringent credit practices help control quality and robust back office and use of technology help improve efficiencies.
OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES
If the bank is adding 10,000 new customers everyday and if a customer does 70 to 75 transactions per year, then the bank must run an assembly- line like operation to process transactions. Incredibly ICICI actually does it.
turnaround time.
Standardization Of Processes
In ICICI bank, although distribution is decentralized, risk control is centralized. Credit is separate from sales, which means while the sales team is responsible for getting new business, it is the credit team working on the central credit policy, which approves or rejects customer acquisitions. In case of mortgages, there is a structured field investigation process to check on the legal documents and property valuation. All that helps to keep a close watch on retail credit quality and explains why the banks retail net NPA is 0.75%. Since the processes are standardized, they are not just scalable but also replicated across functions. For instance, earlier when a customer applied to open an account, a three- week waiting period was involved. IN that time, his cheque book, ATM card and pin number would arrive in seven separate envelopes, because the process was manual. Adopting a straight through processing system lowered the waiting time to five days and reduced the mail load to one envelope. Starting a few months ago, customers are now given a pre-printed welcome kit when they open an account and the cards are activated the next day. Besides, every quarter, the bank projects the increase in customer base and transactions for the next quarter and accordingly increases its backoffice bandwidth.
PRODUCTS
During fiscal 2003, ICICI had continued their focus on retail deposits. This has reduced funding cost and has enabled them to create a stable funding base, with over 4.7 million deposit customers. Following a life stage segmentation strategy, ICICI Bank offers differentiated liability products to various categories of customers depending on their age group. For e.g.: Young Star Accounts for children below the age of 18 years, Student Banking Services for students. As the leading provider of retail financial services, we are constantly striving to provide products and services that enable customers to fulfill their financial requirements.
III. FOLLOW THE CUSTOMER WORLDWIDE AND BUILD SCALABLE MODEL FOR GLOBAL ROLLOUT.
To diversify risk across geographies, the bank in the last two years has been increasing its global footprint and following the Indian corporate customers overseas, where it has set up seven representative offices or branches with applications put in for two more in South Africa and Bangladesh, and a subsidiary in Russia.
Going forward the banks policy to consolidate its presence in existing markets, accelerate growth, sustain profitability and build a business model to withstand the pressures of a global rollout. M&A as a route for growth is unlikely as the bank sees little value in acquisitions given the banks own reach and equity with customers. Instead, he wants to grow it organically to keep both costs and risks down.
IV.
LEVERAGE
BALANCE
SHEET
STRENGTH
AND
STRONG
CORPORATE RELATIONSHIPS
In a bid to further strengthen its balance sheet, the bank securitized assets worth RS 10,700 crore. For marginally lower realization, it takes a lot of risk off the banks own balance sheet. With Basel II norms round the corner, the bank will have to access low cost funds to protect its profit margins and cover bad loans.
Multi-channel driven retail customer expansion With the market expansion and customer expansion, ICICI cant just expand branches. Therefore it needs to look for another delivery model making it convenient to the customers to do banking. So it needs a model to prevent the customer from coming to the bank and at the same time service him.
So there are various other modes like Internet, Mobile, Phone Banking. Roughly, only 30% of the transaction happens through branch, 50% through ATMs, and 10% with phone banking and net banking, but cost wise these channels have a very low cost as compared to a branch transaction. On a rough estimate, if at a branch ICICI has to spend Rs50 per transaction, at an ATM it is almost 25% of the Rs50. So cost of transaction is very low. Therefore it encourages customers to use the ATM or call up if he needs a cheque book etc. If they want to transfer money, it encourages them to go online. ICICI has branches open for 12 hours and migration of the customers from physical to online saves a lot of cost to the bank . To cope with the growth in expansion, ICICI is sourcing almost 2 lakh customers per month. The branches are the same and there is tremendous pressure otherwise on the branch. Therefore, it encourages migration.
Certain core activities customer will continue to do from the branches. There are people
who come to the bank just to find out the balance. Things are improving. India being a conservative country, things are taking time. Earlier, there were so many apprehensions about the success of ATMs. Today, it is convenient and popular.
ICICI has almost 1700 ATMs coming up. Right now there are 300 transactions per ATM per day. The moment it crosses 400 plus, it starts putting up an ATM. To efficiently distribute its products and services, ICICI Bank has developed multiple access channels comprising lean brick and mortar branches, ATMs, call centers and Internet banking.
FY2001 saw a significant growth in the branch network (including extension counters) to 378, on account of the merger of Bank of Madura. In March 2001, ICICI Bank became the first Indian bank to cross the 500 ATM mark. The current network of 510 ATMs is the largest in the country accounting for nearly 20% of all ATMs in the country. Customers can now access their ICICI Bank accounts over telephones in 17 cities. These investments in channel infrastructure have enabled ICICI Bank to achieve rapid growth in its retail business. During the year ICICI Bank added over 2.5 million customer accounts, taking the total number of accounts up from 0.65 million at March 31, 2000 to 3.2 million at March 31, 2001. A significant portion of this increase came from savings accounts which increased from 0.29 million to 1.66 million. NRI accounts also witnessed a strong growth and increased from 23,500 to 84,000. ICICI Banks Internet banking customers increased 400% to 550,000 at March 31, 2001.
Says O P Srivastava, head of the retail channel infrastructure group at ICICI Bank, When the banking sector was liberalised we knew that to get a lead over the well entrenched PSU banks, we had to take the help of delivery channels like ATMs. This was the only way to counter the reach of national players. ICICI Bank is the most aggressive deployer of ATMs and has seen its base surge from 125 ATMs in January 2000 to 1,200 ATMs today. Such has been the impact of ATMs that ICICI Banks customer base has grown from two million to five million in the last two years. ICICI attributes this increase to the increase in ATM outlets.
ICICI is also developing new strategies to leverage their ATM outlets. For instance, rather than set up a branch in every suburb, ICICI Bank has hit upon a ratio of 8 ATMs to one branch office, thus effectively reaching out to a large customer base, at a substantially lower cost.
Anywhere Banking
ICICI Bank is the second largest bank in the country. It services a customer base of more than 5 million customer accounts through a multi-channel access network. This includes more than 500 branches and extension counters, over 1800 ATMs, Call Centre and Internet Banking.
Thus, one can access the various services ICICI Bank has to offer at anytime, anywhere and from anyplace. To learn more about the various channels, please click on the topic of your interest mentioned in the left menu.
http://www.icicibank.com/pfsuser/channels/internet/internet. htm
E-LOBBIES
By installing self-service machines and maybe a one-man enquiry point at the large corporate, the bank has provided a convenient service for the employees. These clients make good cross-selling prospects as they are a relatively risk-averse segment. Keeping in line with the idea of offering convenient, anytime, anywhere banking, ICICI Bank has pioneered the idea of unstaffed branches in India. Its e-lobbies are its answer to expanding its branch network while still controlling costs. Using leading edge technology, the self-service banking centers allow customers to pay bills, withdraw money, videoconference with a customer service executive, carry out online broking and make other
such transactions, without needing a cashier. The e-lobbies also offer Braille and voiceenabled ATMs for visually impaired customers. At some locations, the e-lobbies also display artwork by upcoming artists, acting as an art gallery.
DIRECT APPROACH
Recognising the inconvenience of visiting a branch in the highly populated and traffic congested cities like Mumbai and Delhi, ICICI Bank decided to use direct agents to sell its mortgages. Supported by the call centre, which would identify prospects and initiate dialogue, the direct sales agent could arrange a convenient time to visit and discuss the product with the prospective client. This allowed the bank for personal preferences to be catered for. For example, couples could invite the agent to meet them at home after dinner when both husband and wife are
present. A similar sales model was used to sell other products, such as credit cards and personal loans. To sell its automobile and two-wheeler loans, ICICI Bank teamed up with the manufacturers and dealers so that it became the preferred financier at each level from the customer to the dealer to the manufacturer. During the fiscal year 2002, it increased its lead in the automobile loans market, expanding its distribution network to 145 cities and towns across India. The key drivers for growth were the strength of our corporate relationships with leading automobile manufacturers, strong distribution capability and customer service focus.
salary account for the working people. ICICI also focuses a lot on cross selling to promote the products.
ICICI BANK provides the following retail banking products for its customers:
SAVINGS ACCOUNTS Features
The ICICI Bank Ncash debit card is a debit-cum-ATM card providing the convenience of acceptance at merchant establishments and cash withdrawals at ATMs.
Auto Invest Account Internet Banking is offered free of cost.
Anywhere Banking - This facility entitles the account holder to withdraw or deposit cash upto a limit of Rs.50,000 across all ICICI Bank branches. A customer can give the bank various types of standing instructions like transferring to fixed deposit accounts at regular intervals. An average quarterly balance of Rs 5,000 only.
Features
An operating account with free multi city chequebook facility. A saving account, which offers to sweep balances above Rs.25,000 in multiples of Rs.5,000 to a fixed deposit for 1 year. No minimum balance requirement. In other words, there is no penalty for nonmaintenance of minimum balances in the accounts. Internet Banking Free Anywhere banking Free collection of outstation cheques Free monthly account statements. Payroll processing for employees of the organisation through ICICI Bank Salary Accounts Inward remittance through Money2India for FCRA approved trusts.
Demand Loan / overdraft against deposits will be upto 90% of the deposit. The upcountry cheque collection facility for locations with ICICI Bank presence free of charge to the Senior Citizen customers.
Auto Invest Account Internet Banking is offered free of cost.
Anywhere Banking - This facility entitles the account holder to withdraw or deposit cash upto a limit of Rs.50,000 across all ICICI Bank branches. A Fixed deposit with a minimum value of Rs.10,000 and avail zero balance facility in the savings accounts
WOMEN ACCOUNT
The features of the account have been specially designed keeping in mind a woman's financial requirements. These include : A)Recurring B)Financial planning Deposits of children
C) Family Shield Insurance In addition to these, all features of the existing bank account are available with this
account as well such as Free international debit card Internet Banking Phone Banking ATM's
BANK@CAMPUS
With bank@campus, ICICI Bank's Student Banking Service, a student can now look forward to the new face we have given to banking - his / her computer monitor. In addition, he gets: Free Phone Banking Free transfer of funds into his / her account from any ICICI Bank account Annual statement of accounts
CURRENT ACCOUNTS
Made to Order current account
Made2order current account, unlike the normal current account which is based on the
quarterly balance, allows the customer to have customized current account based on the business requirement. The made2order current account is totally flexible and can be adapted to changing business requirement, without having the requirement to Current Accounts have specific requirement of Quarterly Average Balance (QAB) maintenance and inturn offer various facilities free of cost to the customer based on the QAB. A personalized schedule of charges is derived for each customer based on: Service Required QAB as agreed to be maintained in the account Float expected in the account
With the pocket money that you transfer to your child's account, you can even shop with him / her at Young Stars very own shopping page. You can even open a recurring deposit in your child's name. Once you are done with your 'banking', you can access your child's account with all the fun links to special zones designed to suit your child's area of interests and also impart knowledge on the current events of the world.
LOANS
Home Loan:
Attractive interest rates Door-step service from enquiry stage till final disbursement Can transfer your existing high-interest rate loan Free personal accidental insurance Special 100% funding for select properties
Personal Loan Car Loan Two Wheeler Loan Commercial Vehicle Loan Loans against Securities
Farm Equipment Loans Construction Equipment Loans Office Equipment Loans Medical Equipment Loans Loan against Gold
Convenient & Secure:No more hassles of finding Money Changers and encashing
travellers cheques!
As good as Cash: ICICI Bank Travel Card gives access to local currency through
8,50,000 VISA ATMs. One can also shop at over 13 million merchants who accept VISA Electron Cards.
DEBIT CARDS
ICICI Bank HPCL Debit Card- The Sensible Choice Basic Features
ICICI Bank and HPCL bring the "Fuel" Debit Card. A debit card designed with just your convenience in mind. Just hand it over at any HPCL pumps and SAVE on your fuel purchases. In fact you can use the card for all your shopping, dining and traveling needs, so you spend with total control. Your ICICI Bank HPCL Debit Card comes packed with the following features: Direct On-line debit to your ICICI Bank account. Refund of surcharge* for fuel purchases at HPCL pumps. Accepted at over 90,000 shops, more than 1,800 ICICI Bank ATM's and more than 10,000 VISA ATMs all over India. International card offering deposit access at over 13 million shops and & VISA ATM's all over the world.
Speed-O-Miles Rewards Programme. Itemized billing on your bank statement. Lost card insurance.
RECENT LAUNCH
ICICI Bank has recently launched `Mutual Fund Sweep Account' for its current account holders. According to a bank release, customers can park surplus funds in their current accounts in high-liquidity mutual funds through an automatic sweep facility.
Initially, the mutual fund schemes available under this facility are restricted to liquid fund schemes of Prudential ICICI AMC and GIC Mutual Fund. The choice of funds would be increased subsequently. The release quoted Ms Chanda Kochchar, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, as saying, "it is a unique product that merges the transaction efficiency of the banking account with the returns potential of a liquid mutual fund and is likely to change the way mutual funds are sold and distributed.'' Most of the private sector and foreign banks have been offering a sweep facility in the savings account through which customers can park surplus funds in fixed deposits. However, mutual fund sweep account is a new product.
Organisation Structure
Evolving organisation structure Geographic to functional orientation Customer centric orientation for identified segments Product centric orientation for mass market Product centric approach helps gain market share Customer centric approach helps deepen relationships
Bundling of services to improve convenience to customers Overcoming regulatory constraints Enhancing customer experience and promoting stickiness
now 68:32. However, this mix is changing and the incremental growth of corporate to retail is now 45:55.
by the latter. The disbursals of ICICI Bank, which has grown aggressively in a time span of five years, rose from Rs 8,659.4 crore in FY-03 to Rs 13,278 crore in FY-04. The bank at present has a market share of about 27 per cent of the total market of Rs 5,00,000 crore approximately, banking industry sources said.
"We will continue to try and provide competitive rates, along with innovative addon services. We will also increase our presence even beyond the 400-plus locations where we are currently present".
According the HDFC's annual performance, the disbursals of the entity in FY-04 grew by 28 per cent at Rs 12,697 crore (Rs 9,951 crore in FY-03). HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh has in the past gone on record that the housing finance company was not looking at a market share growth but would focus on growing profitably.
Both entities were marketing their home loan products through their branch networks and direct sales agents. HDFC Bank was also sourcing housing loans from HDFC.
ICICI Bank was currently offering home loans at 7.5 per cent for all tenures on floating rates while in case of HDFC, the rates were pegged between 7.5 to 8.5 per cent
productmix for specific customer segments. These are implemented using a combination of: Features New Card Designs Fee / APR / Charges linked to option of services Pricing Strategies Loyalty / Rewards / promotions /campaigns Behavioural / Transactional Scoring, to impact: Credit Limit Over limit etc. In addition, host of generic services are linked to the Card Products (these would wary from an issuer to issuer with most of the underlying features being alike)
credit thus promising to maximise the value for each $ spent by the customer. Cards businesses are evolving with intense competition, attractive ROI, joining of retailers and telecom companies into this space, Card being the underlying proposition in ecommerce and the best and most convenient vehicle for delivering financial services across borders. Continuous improvement of processes, practices, services, technology, alliances and products have reached a stage where the offerings on Card products include the following variants, covering those segments as well, which were outside the traditional consumer segment: Corporate / Business Cards (AMEX having a $45 BN spend on their 4.9 Million Cards Portfolio in one Year) Business Purchase Cards (Meeting all the Purchase requirements of a small / Medium Enterprise) Co-branded Cards aimed at maximizing benefits to the Card Holder by both the issuing and Co-branding partners. Co-issuing for and on behalf of a partner Affinity Cards representing a close user group with the benefits realised on the spend by the Affinity Group Instalment Loans with EMI linked to Card outside the Credit Limit Personal Loan linked to a Card Consumer Loan disbursed through a Card with a credit line equivalent to the Loan
amountThe paid up instalments adding to Open To Buy (OTB) Secondary Limits on the Cards during high spend seasons Hybrid products covering the features of the Card and the Loan Virtual Card (e-card for exclusive use on the net) A Card as part of the Mobile Phone SIM card for making Payments etc.
Standard Chartered Bank in association with VISA International has introduced the Marathon credit card. This special card is issued to celebrate the spirit of the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon and to compliment the spirit of fitness.
Standard Chartered Bank is the market leader in sport based affinity card programmes. Its earlier success includes that of the Cricket Card, the Soccer Card and Olympic Games Card. The Marathon Card is a logical extension of the Standard Chartered Bank product suite. It has partnered with Reebok in its endeavour to promote fitness among the customers. The exclusive offers for the customer include:
Free Reebok Running Shoes: A pair of Reebok 3D Runner Shoes worth Rs. 2290/- are
offered
free
with
every
card
Balance Transfer at 0.99%: An attractive balance transfer at a very low interest rate of 0.99% per month, for the first 6 months.
Supplementary Card free for life: All Marathon cardmembers could gift their near and dear ones supplementary Marathon Credit Cards. These cards are offered free for life.
Win Reebok treadmills: On spending just Rs 900/- on the Marathon Credit Card every month, customers get a chance to win Reebok treadmills worth Rs.2, 45,000/- each, for a period of 8 months.
Citibanks "Premium"
A 20 per cent discount at the newest food haunt in town, an opportunity to win diamonds with every purchase or a holiday package dirt-cheap each time you receive your credit card statement, out will pop a host of rewards along with it, luring you to binge on your card. Almost all the credit card companies are looking at the same old F&B tie-ups, offering discounts at retail stores or tying up with hotels for holiday packages to ensure customer loyalty. Is the credit card market heading for clutter? Are credit card companies struggling to differentiate their respective brands? Although industry experts claim that the market is growing at a rate of 25-30 per cent every year, with a customer base of seven million people, they feel that the usage and understanding of the card users are not high, and
that only 20 per cent of the card base actually generates revenue for the card issuers. "One of the concerns of many card issuers in India is to ensure that once the customer is sold the credit card, it becomes the preferred payment mechanism in his wallet vis--vis other cards that he may own. While the market is getting cluttered with offers, incentives and tie-ups, Standard Chartered Bank takes great care in ensuring the relevance of such offers to the customers. The relevance of such offers is ascertained through extensive research and feedback from customers," says Neel Chatterjee, Director (Corporate Affairs), Standard Chartered Bank.
Rewards and sales The strategy of offering rewards in the form of a discounted meal or a holiday may sound run-of-the-mill, but credit card companies still feel that it is a good way of increasing sales. Encouraging cardholders to use their cards initially through rewards and benefits is a good way of increasing category awareness and drives up card sales volumes.
"Smartfill, the co-branded card launched by Standard Chartered Bank and Bharat Petroleum in association with Visa, is an example of offering a value proposition. It enables cardholders to earn one reward point for every Rs 125 spent on the card. Cardholders also get a fee waiver on purchase of fuel at over 225 designated Bharat Petroleum outlets in 10 cities across the country," he added.
The need of the hour is to develop new and innovative areas of usage of cards, which are not only relevant to the customers but also make business sense to the companies.
Yet another example of a credit card company trying to offer its customers value propositions through co-branding is ICICI Bank. The bank has four co-branding relationships ICICI Bank-HPCL, ICICI Bank-BPL, ICICI Bank-Trinetra and ICICI BankAmway. Each of these targets the need of particular groups of people; we would continue to look for partnership and associations to provide other value added services to the consumers," says the ICICI spokesperson.
You might be able to differentiate between a cylinder and a piston, but can you understand the multiple car loan options in the market? You have 6/6 eyesight but still can't read the fine print. Nowadays there are many cars in the market and as many (if not more) ways to buy them. We help you in clearing the clutter behind all the jargon. Happy driving!
EMI (per Rs Remarks 100,000 loan) 1year (Rs) Citibank HSBC 9,120 9,097 3 years 5 (Rs) 3,565 3,541 3,515 3,492 3,423 (Rs) 2,445 2,459 2,451 2,438 Cardholders get a discount Existing customers get preferential rates Check for accountholder benefits ICICI bond holder get discount Only Fiat Cars years
HDFC Bank 8,993 ICICI Fiat 8,912 Finance Kotak 8,973 Mahindra Countrywid 8,993 8,973
3,515 3,515
2,489 2,451
e ANZ 8,993 Grindlays Saraswat Bank Ford Credit 8,973 3,492 2,975 Only for Ford cars. 3,500 2,425 3,493 2,438 Offered special services to expedite delivery
the flexibility of repaying a minimum of 5 per cent of the total outstanding every month, very similar to the facility available on credit cards repayment. The car overdraft facility is like providing mixed benefits of a personal loan, credit card, car loan, as also the regular benefits of a roaming current account. Loan on Phone: This is a unique offer to some of ICICI customers who have been given a pre-approved car loan based on their existing relationship. The customer can simply contact the call centre to find out if he/she has a pre-approved loan. On getting a confirmation he can walk into any dealership or contact our channel partner and take the car by completing minimal documentation. Used cars loans: These are expected to get more aggressive. With better control on process of transactions on used cars highlighted by entry of organised players and showroom price tags, this is expected to lead to more financing on used cars. The availability of used cars loans is now expected to reach much beyond the current reach and into the C category smaller townships across India. Refinance and top-up loans are also being offered for not just ICICI Bank customers, but even customers with repayments from other financiers.
Car loans is another turf where competition is forcing innovation. For instance, Standard Chartered is offering loans of up to 75 per cent of the value of a car less than five years old. Even though it is classified as a personal loan, the rate is cheaper because the loan
is secured against the car and the money can be used for anything. Normally, personal loans are costlier because they are unsecured loans.
As the above pie charts depict branch banking usage is also dependent on the age of the customer segment. The key results are: Branch banking is the most popular in the age group >30 years as there are almost 67% of respondents in these age groups who prefer branch banking over all the other methods.
In the age groups up to 30 years, branch banking was the second choice for the majority of the customers.
Reasons for not using the lower ranked channels A majority of people banking with public banks cited the reason that they did not use technology based methods like ATM, internet etc. as they were either not available with the bank or they did not know how to use them On the other hand, the majority of private and foreign banks customers felt that these methods were unreliable, time consuming and they were not aware that these services were available with the bank.
As depicted by the graph, majority of the respondents felt that convenience was more important to them than the extra costs involved in getting those services. This implies that even if banks charge a nominal fee for some of the extra services to make retail banking more convenient to the customers, it would be acceptable to the customers.
Branch banking is the most reliable channel since it involves face to face interaction
Security of the banking transactions over the internet seemed to be the most important hindrance in making people use internet as a channel for retail banking. Majority of the respondents who agreed that internet was not secure had either never used internet as a channel or used it as their last choice for banking. Similarly those who disagreed that internet was not secure, used it as their first or second choice for retail banking functions. This shows their reliability on internet and preference for convenience.
I would not like to use new technology based methods for my banking transactions
Approx 65 % agreed and 35% disagreed that they would like to try internet and other methods on trial basis if they knew how to use them and if there banks provided them with all the required information. This shows that the banks more than just providing the services should also focus on
spreading awareness about them and also make people aware of how easy they are to use and how to use them.
As shown in the above graph, the most important reason cited for dis-satisfaction was high interest on loans followed by bad service which includes ATMs usually not working, Mobile message alerts not being received on time etc. The least important reason for dissatisfaction was cited as Lack of special offers for existing customers, the reason for which can be that customers want first to be satisfied with the current products and services before being offered new products from the same bank.
As depicted by the above pie charts, people in different age groups have different expectations from their banks which are as follows: Respondents in the age group of 20-25 and 25-30 had similar requirements as a majority of respondents of both the groups favored bundling of banking and non banking services followed by a need for innovative products.
An equal number of respondents in the age group of 30-40 gave importance to innovative products, convenient distribution channels and less costly services as tools for banks to retain them The respondents in the age group of greater than 40 wanted less costly services and convenient distribution channels. Respondents in the age group of >30 years seemed to be more price sensitive towards the products & services being provided by the banks.
What are the information tools that you use for making your retail banking products decisions?
The pie charts for future retail banking requirements give the following results: Majority of people in the age group (approx 50%) would need auto loans in the next two years, which is for their first vehicle. Followed by this, approx 33% would need credit cards. 77% of the respondents in the age group 25-30 years mentioned that they would need a home loan in the next two years followed by 23% who said that they would need auto loans. This finding proves that this is the most attractive segment for banks to give housing loan offers. A similar result was shown in the segment of 30-40 years i.e a majority of them needed home loans in the next two years followed by auto loans.
A majority in the age group > 40 years planned to take home loans in the next two years even though for them the intention was to buy a second car for the family. Almost an equal number wanted to get credit cards and home loans in the near future. Only 13% of the respondents that too belonging to the age group of >40 years said that they needed personal loans in the near future.
I would prefer the bank I am currently banking with, for my next future retail banking need
Although personal experience and loyalty was not rated high as an important factor for making retail banking decision, yet 73% of the respondents agreed that they would prefer going to their current bank for their future retail banking needs as well.
This proves that cross selling can prove to an important strategy for banks to increase their share in the customers wallet.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Although the banks have been providing distribution channels like in internet, phone banking etc, most of the customers are reluctant to use them as they are either not aware of it, think it is unreliable or do not know how to use them. Therefore the banks need to focus on spreading more awareness about their benefits, usage and reliability if they want to save costs at the distribution channels end. Banks need to focus on factors like promptness of service and quality of service in order to gain the market share; this is essentially true for some of the Public Sector Banks. Banks should devise future products looking at the individual requirements of the various customer segments. Moreover they should direct their marketing strategies towards segments which can be the most attractive for that particular retail product. For e.g Home Loans for the age group of 25-30 years.
Another aspect that was revealed out of this survey was that customers favor retail banking products which combine a banking product with non banking products or benefits. This is being implemented in the Credit and debit cards to a large extent but now should also be linked to the other products. Customers today are willing to pay more for convenience, want better services, are willing to try new product and delivery channels if they are safe. All this provides immense opportunity for banks to continue inventing to grow in the retail banking industry. What the retail banks need to do is identify new segments more frequently and come up with more and more value-propositions which will give the customers enough and more reasons to use their products. For e.g The banks could probably look at offering a credit card to college students for their educational expenses."
CONCLUSION TO MY RESEARCH
The retail banking scenario is changing at an immense speed. It is characterized by the: Significant change in demographic profile Huge market potential Increasingly challenging business environment Competitive tools are different need to redefine delivery models and
business processes. In this fast changing scenario, banks need to equip themselves with internal capabilities and build efficient and viable business models to create the advantage of new opportunities available into a long term sustainable competitive advantage Banks today cannot restrict their learnings to the best practices followed in the industry but they need to look at other benchmark industries to derive learning on various important business parameters. They need to learn from each other and also benchmark not only banking and financial services industries but winning companies across a wide range of industries A continuous innovation in every aspect of business can only help banks to keep pace with the ever changing and ever evolving consumer mind.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Project involves studying the retail banking strategies being adopted by various banks with special focus on ICICI Bank. Retail banking is typical mass-market banking where individual customers use local branches of larger commercial banks. Services offered include: savings and checking accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit cards, credit cards, and so forth.
The report starts with a detailed analysis of the retail industry how its has grown and who are the major players in the industry. Thereafter I have included ICICI as a case to understand the strategies followed by it in order to grow in the retail banking scenario.
I have also included examples from some other banks that have been bringing in product
centric and distribution centric innovations in order to differentiate themselves. My main focus has been on the Savings Account, Credit Cards, Home Loans and Auto Loans. This information was gathered by studying the products and distribution channels of these banks and selecting some of the best examples.
Thereafter the report tries to look at the other important aspect of Retail Banking i.e. the customers perspective, his preferences and expectations. This has been done through a market survey of sample size of 50 respondents. The questionnaire had a wide range of questions from the distribution channels used by the customers, to their current retail requirements and also their future requirements and expectations.
On the basis of the entire research I have given my own recommendations and conclusion as to what should be the focus of the banks in order to succeed in the retail banking arena.
REFERENCES
Magazines:
Chartered Financial Analyst- Indian Banking November 2004 Retail Banking, the new growth driver Business Today January 2, 2005 Indias Best Banks Pitch: Marketing at crossroads December 15- January 14, 2004/05 Banking ON Emotional Bonding Financial Express, Oct 21,2002 Knowing Your Customer, New Age Banking Way Business Standard Innovation games bankers play Tamal Bandyopadhyay | May 22, 2004
Websites:
http://fic.wharton.upenn.edu/fic/papers/97/9748.pdf http://www.bseindia.com/downloads/PersonalFinance.pdf http://www.bcg.com/publications/files/Protecting_the_Franchise_as_New_Forces_Tr ansform_Retail_Banking_Sep04_OfA.pdf http://www.myiris.com/cards/compare1.php http://www.icicibank.com/pfsuser/aboutus/investorelations/annualreport/pdf/ar2k3.pdf www. Indiainfoline.com http--www.igi-online.com-downloads-pdf-ITJ2551_5OVKFbGH37.pdf http--www.hdfcbank.com-pdf_forms-investorpresentation.pdf http--www.bseindia.com-downloads-AsianBanking.pdf
QUESTIONNAIRE
1. Which bank/s are you currently banking with? (Please mention all)
3. Rank the following channels from 1 to 5 in terms of how much do you use these channels ( 1 being the rank of the channel that you use the most)
Internet Banking ATMs Branch Banking Phone Banking Mobile banking
4. Tick the reason/s for not using the lower ranked channels mentioned in Q3:
It is not available with my bank It is unreliable I dont know how to use it I think its very complicated and confusing to use Its more time consuming than the other methods I dont know if its available with my bank and for my banking needs It is costlier than the other channels
I dont have access to it (no internet connection, no phone, no ATM around my area etc ) Any other reason ____________________________
Reliability
Branch banking is the most reliable channel since it involves face to face interaction I am concerned over the security aspects of internet banking transactions. Information concerning internet banking transactions can be tampered by others
I dont like to use new technology based channels for my banking transactions
Triability
To what extent would you use internet banking and paid channels if it is available on a trial basis for a month Very interested ----------------------------------------- Not Interested 12345
6. Rate the factor from 1 to 5 in terms of their importance in choosing a retail bank (5 being the highest and 1 being the least)
Charges/ Fees for services Quality of service Loyalty/ Personal experience with the bank Branch ambience and location Speed/ promptness of service Brand image (like ICICI reliable) Special promotional offers (0% interest on credit cards for 1 year etc )
Interest rates on deposits/ car loans/ auto loans/ credit cards etc Others Please specify ________________________________
7. Rate the possible reasons for dissatisfaction from a retail banking provider (rate from 1 to 5; one being the lowest rating and 5 being the highest.)
High interest rates on loans/ overdrafts Bad customer service Less number of delivery channels (branches/ ATMs etc) Time consuming transactions/ Processes Lack of special offers for existing customers Inefficient staff Mention if any other reason ______________________________
Combining financial services to provide package offers Bundling of banking services and non banking services (such as tickets to concerts, discounts at stores with credit cards etc) Establish a better brand image. Others please specify __________________________
9. Which of the following information search tools which you could use for making a choice for your retail banking product?
Family/ Friends/ Relatives advice Bank staff Website visits Newspapers Banking magazines and reviews Others
10. What could be you future financial needs in the next 2 years?
Home Loans Car Loan
11. I would prefer the bank I am currently banking with, for my next retail banking need
Yes No: