As the Government of India’s vision of having a cashless economy and making improvements in the internet facility witnessed an upliftment and acceptance, the country was able to record more than 25.5 billion payment transactions in the year 2020, which was considerably more than China by 60 per cent.
What is the meaning of digital banking?
Digital banking infers the automation of conventional banking services. With digital banking, you can now access banking services and products through the online platform with ease. Digital banking infers digitization of all the banking chores and operations and is a substitute for the financial institution’s physical presence, eliminating the requirement for visiting the branch. Still not clear? Understand this with an example.
Suppose you have bank accounts with the Central bank of India and the Indian bank, and you want to transfer your fund from your Central bank of India account to your Indian bank account. For this, what must you do? Had this been a case 20 years back, you would have visited the Central bank of India’s branch to make the transfer of your fund to your Indian bank. However, now is the era of digitization. With digitization, you do not require visiting either of the banks as per the Central bank of India timings and Indian bank timings. This is because by using the net banking account of any of the banks you can easily transfer and receive the funds in seconds.
What are the advantages of using digital banking?
Advancing to a higher technologically sophisticated, rapid, and simpler way of banking, it goes without mentioning that its benefits outweigh the few drawbacks it may have. As digital banking is a technological by-product with the aim of making life simpler and easier for you as a customer, you must be well-versed in the listed benefits –
∙ Digital banking allows you to conduct banking functions easily from the comfort of your home. So, may it be an old individual tired of standing in long queues in the bank branch or a working-class expert caught up with important work or a general individual who does not like to approach the bank physically for a petty errand, – all of them can make the most of the convenience offered by digital or net banking.
∙ With digital banking, you can conduct your banking activities around the clock at any time as it offers 24 X 7 access to all the banking functions. So, now you do not require visiting as per the bank timings to conduct your urgent banking tasks. You can conduct any of the banking activities with ease through net banking or digital channel with just a few clicks from the comfort of your home.
∙ One of the major disadvantages of traditional banking is it has a requirement to fill-out application forms and provide documents. Banking with digital platforms has become paperless and for conducting any of your banking tasks, you do not require providing any kind of document or fill out any form. You as an account user must just sign into your net banking account at any time from your device from anywhere to conduct your banking activities.
∙ Digital banking permits you as a user to effectively set up your automatic payments for timely payments of your utility bills like gas, electricity, credit cards and phone. You as a customer, do not require making any conscious effort for remembering your due date if you set the automatic deduction payment facility.
∙ Online shopping today has become like a cakewalk as the payment channels have become more integrated with online shopping podiums.
∙ Digital banking extends services to remote locations now. This is one of the crucial steps towards holistic development. Moreover, with smartphones available at affordable costs and the internet becoming accessible easily in remote locations, the rural population too can make the most by using digital banking facilities.
∙ Digital banking or online banking-enabled fund transfers has reduced the risk of any counterfeit currency.
∙ With the assistance of online banking, you as a user can easily report, block, make changes to the transaction limit, enable, or disable international or domestic transactions, request for an increase in credit card limit etc. with just a click on this system. This facility greatly strengthens your security and privacy.
∙ Bu promoting and encouraging a cashless system, digital banking restricts black money circulation in the market. This also, allows the Indian Government to better track the movement of funds in the market. Over the long term, digital banking or online banking in the future is expected to reduce the minting demand for currency in the market.
What are the digital banking products, you must be well-versed with?
If you are an individual with access to a stable net connection and hold an internet-enabled device, then digital banking is the best bet for you instead of visiting the bank for conducting an activity like fetching your balance account statement. Suppose today if you want to fetch your Indian bank statement for a specific month, then you do not require visiting the bank during the Indian bank timings. You must now, straightaway, visit the net banking platform of Indian bank to fetch your balance account statement with ease in just seconds. So, you see the hassle of visiting the branch physically to waiting in a long queue to fill out the form for the balance statement, all have been reduced to just a minute chore.
The various digital product services, which you can get through the net banking platforms are bank account statements, fund transfer, mobile banking, cash transfer, bill payment, management of cheques and monitoring of your transaction records. Besides these digital product services, there are other services too for which you do not require visiting the branch physically. These include applying for a credit card or debit card of your preference, making changes to the credit card and debit card setting features, requesting a loan of your choice etc.