How Indian banks are leveraging social networks to take banking to a different level

When a close friend met up with an accident, a thought quickly raced through the mind of Avinash Joshi, a 16-year old college going happy-go-lucky kid. As he waited anxiously outside the operating room, his first thought was of raising money quickly for taking care of the hospital expenses. Without wasting any time, he coolly took out his smartphone from his pocket, and quickly reached out to his Facebook friends to help in pooling money. Within a time period of just one hour, Avinash had enough money in his account to help in paying the initial expenses. It is important to note here that none of Avinash's friends had Avinash's account number or bank branch or the IFSC code -- they were just friends with Avinash on his Facebook friend list.

Till a few years back, this scenario would have been impossible to comprehend or even think. Today, this is a reality thanks to initiatives by private banks like ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank. Indian banks today have realized the immense potential of social media platforms like Facebook. And there is good reason too. Facebook has more than 112 million users in India, the largest after the US. And what better way to engage with end customers than be at a place where customers are already present. Facebook gives banks one more channel to engage in real conversations with fans and prospective customers.

Socializing Banking
Recognizing this trend, India's largest private sector bank, ICICI Bank, was the first to launch a Facebook application that allowed its customers to view their savings account details and statement on Facebook, and also order a cheque book and upgrade their debit cards, while being on the social media platform. The bank has followed this up by launching a slew of other applications. A year later, it created 'Pockets' - a Facebook application that allows one to make a payment to a friend, recharge a prepaid mobile or book movie tickets. The best part is that one does not need to know the bank account details of their friends to make a transfer. One can also carry out non-financial transactions such as accessing a mini statement of savings bank account or order a cheque book.

More recently, in January 2015, the bank launched ‘icicibankpay’, an initiative that enables ICICI Bank customers to transfer money to anyone in the country who has a Twitter account, check account balance, view last three transactions and recharge prepaid mobile.

"With the growing prominence of social media in every-day life, we believe our customers would be delighted to have yet another avenue which allows them to bank while they are on social media. Now, ‘icicibankpay’ will help our customers to execute banking transactions while they are socializing on Twitter," says Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive Director, ICICI Bank.

Any ICICI Bank savings account customer, who has a mobile number registered with the bank and has a Twitter account, can access the facilities of ‘icicibankpay’.  The customer can send money to anyone in India even if the recipient does not have an ICICI Bank savings account.

Similarly, Kotak Mahindra Bank has launched KayPay, the world’s first bank agnostic payment product for Facebook users to send money to each other instantly. Using this facility, millions of bank account holders can now transfer money to each other at any hour of the day or night, without needing net banking, or knowing various bank account related details of the payee. KayPay enables over 250 million Indian bank account holders transfer funds to each other instantly by just choosing recipients from their Facebook friends list.

Explaining the idea behind launching this service, Deepak Sharma, Executive VP and Head of Digital Initiatives, says, "We wanted to create a platform that would reduce the flow of cash between people - especially for smaller transactions, as many of us find it a cumbersome task to pay in cash. We believed if we could create a product which is frictionless and easy to use, then we would make life simpler for Indians. As most people already spend time on Facebook, they can make small payments within Facebook without the need of logging into net banking."
The product has been a huge success, as Kotak has done three essential things right. It has made transactions real time. Secondly, transactions are possible from any bank to any bank, and thirdly, users do not need to know the bank account details of the person they are transferring money to.

Kotak Mahindra Bank has also launched Jifi, an integrated social banking account wherein customers can receive account updates on Twitter. Designed to fit into the social networking ecosystem, Jifi’s loyalty point programme encourages high level of interactivity among account holders. Customers can earn transactional loyalty points for specific banking activities, and social loyalty points for inviting and adding friends to the Jifi network, liking/commenting on Facebook, etc. Further, each referral can also earn them social loyalty points. These points can be redeemed for offers and can also be transferred to friends who are part of their Jifi network. Kotak Mahindra Bank recognizes that if this trend catches on, banking can also become a viral activity with peers recommending the bank.

These are exciting times for Indian banks and customers too. By developing a slew of innovative applications on social media platforms, Indian banks have truly shown the way for other industries on how they can take customer satisfaction to a different level.