Cultural Factors Affecting Banking Industry

In past years, BofA has been discussing the bank’s mobile strategies concerning mobile banking and how to incorporate mobile banking that is specific to the customer’s

Convenience way of operating banking transactions: Online banking is a highly profitable channel for financial institutions. It provides customers convenience and elasticity and can be provided at a lower cost than traditional branch banking (Williamson, 2006). The convenience of online banking is helping people gain greater control of their finances and contributing to changing patterns in cash withdrawal and day to day money management. (Beer, 2006)

when is the last time that we have visited the bank for simple transactions of money?. Is it that we are all restricted to go to such places physically?. We live in an era where internet has the ability to change everything within our lives. From banking online, discovering the climatic changes to the way organizations conduct their business is changing through the internet just to make things more agreeable day after day.

In the world of banking and finance nothing stands still. The biggest change of all is in the, scope of the business of banking. Banking in its traditional from is concerned with the acceptance of deposits from the customers, the lending of surplus of deposited money to suitable customers who wish to borrow and transmission of funds. Apart from traditional business, banks now a days provide a wide range of services to satisfy the financial and non financial needs of all types of customers from the smallest account holder to the largest company and in some cases of non customers. The range of services offered differs from bank to bank depending mainly on the type and size of the bank.

Andrew Bailey (2013) “The future of UK banking - challenges ahead for promoting a stable sector”. Bank of England [online]. Available from:

According to the most recent Federal Reserve study; most of us haven’t set foot in a banking hall in ages. It is a lost battle to banks that opt to use traditional methods to conduct their banking transactions (Gup 2003). By December of last year, close to half of all smartphone users in the United States had transacted some or all of their banking on their phones and iPhones. In the United Kingdom alone, rates of mobile banking transactions doubled over the course of a single year (Scn Education 2001). A banking business that invests in this type of technology gets assured of increasing their customer base.

The way people bank is going through explosive, explosive changes. In fact, it’s transformed more in the last decade than in the last century. The great news for millennials is that it’s easy to grasp and use the new technology.

As their name suggests, they only execute their operations online. Customers can only be in contact with their money over the internet since they do not have any physical branches. Because online-only banks require lower overhead costs, they have the capability to offer more free services and higher interest rates compared to a traditional bank. Online banking provides many customers the convenience of handling their business at any physical location as long as they have access to internet. This is possible because of the variety of services that online banks provide despite limiting interaction to only the internet. Some of their services include applying for loans online, transferring funds and paying bills online. While the convenience of being able to access banking through the internet is worthwhile, there are limits to it. For example, making large deposits to the bank is limited and can only be made through the mail, they don’t service cashier checks for transactions, and withdrawing money from the account is very inconvenient. Luckily, the role of the internet in financial transactions is becoming increasingly prominent so that spending money online is more accessible, but it is important to understand both the benefits as well as restraints of online banking. Nowadays, many large brick-and-mortar banks have caught on and provide some online services in attempts to

(Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council,2003). The usual E-banking services provided by banks are account management; bill payment and presentment; new account opening; consumer wire transfers; investment/brokerage services; loan application and approval; account aggregation; cash management ; small business loan applications, approvals, or advances; commercial wire transfers; business-to-business payments; employee benefits/pension administration etc. Online banking or E-banking has spread around the world and has become common these days. In general, banking services have changed over the past three decades to meet the consumers’ needs (McKinsey & Company, 2012); at that time, when the consumer needed money for purchases or to make a transaction, he needed to go to the bank by himself during the bank hours and perhaps waited in a long line to meet a human teller to implement his transaction. Nowadays, due to the E-channels that surfaced with the development of technology and the Internet, the processes of banking have changed. The consumer can make a transaction from one account to another while sitting in his couch anytime and anywhere.

In the old days, people go to bank branches in order to either make a deposit or a withdrawn to their accounts. From 14th century in Venice, Italy to 1970s in New York, United States, banking seems to the same as it never changes. There is no other options if you don’t want to have your own house full of cash open for thieves and robbers. But with digital currency and online banking system, those days have long gone for younger generations only with pictures shown on the history books. Starting from 1990s, growing with the boom of IT technology in Silicon Valley, digital banking has given itself a key role of shaking up the entire banking industry as

. Mobile services not only offer a new, convenient channel for existing customers of banks, the technology will also provide access to 3 Bnstrong global unbanked population

In many developing countries it's common for a person to have a mobile phone but not a bank account. In fact, more than 1 billion people fit this description, and the number is only likely to increase. To that end, many companies are considering how to give residents access to banking services via their handsets. The GSM Association predicts that by 2012, nearly 300 million of the previously "unbanked" will be using some form of mobile banking.

Technological advancement has had a gigantic effect in the banking industry. Over the past few decades, the financial services industry has changed considerably with banking transforming from the pen and paper method to the computers and internet method. The pen and paper method took weeks or even months for the transaction to be eventually completed, and then the dramatic introduction of the computer and internet method which changed that time frame to only a matter of seconds to be completed, which reduced the amount of time and labor needed to complete a transaction significantly. Banking is considered one of the most important economic sectors with it being severely influential and responsive to any little change, whether it is domestic or international. Some extreme changes that were brought about by the development of this new technology turned into a globalized nature for the financial services industry. One stroke of a key on a computer could and would change a person 's life extensively or even have a global impact. The new technologies that were created and introduced changed how the consumers managed their money from that time on. Technology has helped to protect peoples’ hard earned money and make it much more impossible for people to be able to write out bad checks or even holding up a bank. The advancement in technology however, also came with some security risks as most things do, that could affect the money that people trusted with the bank and

IT is additionally changing the way of associations by giving chances to roll out basic improvements in the way they work together. The innovation is evolving quickly, with figuring velocities and the quantity of transistor equivalents accessible in a given territory of a chip both multiplying more or less at regular intervals. Associations are gaining more innovation frameworks to aid in everything from assembling to the administration of data to the procurement and change of client administration. Outfitting and facilitating this registering force is the test. New instruments and creative points of view with which to look at, translate, and understand these quickly developing situations are constantly required and looked for (Beard, 1996).

The last time that technology had a major impact in helping banks service their customers was with the introduction of the Internet banking. Internet Banking helped give the customer's anytime access to their banks. Customer's could check out their account details, get their bank statements, perform transactions like transferring money to other accounts and pay their bills sitting in the comfort of their homes and offices. However the biggest limitation of Internet banking is the requirement of a PC with an Internet connection, not a big obstacle if we look at the US and the European countries, but definitely a big barrier if we consider most of the developing countries of Asia like China and