The current decade has witnessed a number of technological developments in the mobile banking sector. However, the most remarkable of these developments is the tremendous increase in the usage of mobile banking. It is definitely worth mentioning that the high penetration of smartphones, in the urban as well as rural markets, has facilitated the development of mobile banking technology. Today, almost every commercial and retail bank has developed mobile banking applications for their customers and the scope of activities permitted through these applications is increasing day by day. If we look at it from the customer’s perspective, the greatest advantage of mobile banking is the availability of banking services 24 x 7. This has enabled banks to cater to the needs of the banking customers even during odd hours of the day. Let us consider the technology of IMPS as an example. Due to this technology, bank customers are able to transfer money from one account to another across banks and branches. This can be done anywhere in the country with the help of smartphone and that too without any time lapse.
The good thing is that all the leading commercial banks have started participating in the unannounced competition to introduce new mobile banking solutions for their customers. One such solution is the feature of video interaction of banking advisors with the users. With this feature, the users can reach out to the designated banking experts with the help of banking applications and can seek advice. Once this is rolled out, a lot of problems of the bank customers would get solved in a jiffy. Then there is the feature of digital wallets which is expected to increase the speed of bank transactions.
At the same time, almost all the leading banks are planning to redesign their mobile applications in such a way that the customers can access them in a more personalized way. Personalizing the mobile application accounts would also allow the banks to provide better mobile banking solutions as all the features would be customized according to the requirement of an individual customer. Personalized services also will provide the experience of mobile banking in local languages. This would eventually increase user interaction and foster loyalty to the bank.
There are a few challenges which have the potential to slow down the developments in mobile banking. One of the most crucial challenges is definitely the concern of security. However, with the introduction of high quality open banking architecture, the security aspect is being addressed quite actively by the banks. It is expected that a strong data leakage monitoring system would be developed in the near future. This would make mobile banking completely secure and reliable. As customers, our duty would be to contribute to the development of new and enhanced features of mobile banking by using the currently available features.
