Emerging Trends in Retail Banking

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.

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

The United States banking industry has been a problem ever since the fraud and corruption from the market crash of ’08. There have been two sides arguing what we should do to these banks. Many people say, “We need to split up the big banks into smaller banks.” Their argument is that the smaller banks will be easier to monitor to make sure no fraud is going on and it will cause there to be more competition in the industry which will lower interest rates. The other side of the argument where many people also stayed is that the big banks don’t need to be split up. They just need a bailout to get back on their feet and they can sort this mess out. The arguments stand on two principles one side says the banks are corrupt and need to be disbanded, and the other side’s states that the banks are too big to fail; come ground is difficult for these two but they both want to fix the economy.

Therefore, it is essential to address issues like security of the banking transactions that are executed from a distant place and transmitted over the air. Besides this, it is also important to ensure the security of financial transactions, if the device is stolen by hackers. If these concerns are properly addressed, then it would help increase the popularity of mobile banking by instilling a sense of trust among the customers.

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.

The emergence of smartphones, such as iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry, allowed banks to provide a richer

The banking industry started long time ago to provide financial services to merchants in Athens, Venice, Genoa, Florence, and other commercial cities (Conant, 1915). Coins and banknotes were used to facilitate trading and exchanging goods. As the idea of money movement grew, central banks were developed to act as a third party center of trust (Rousseau & Sylla, 2003). For decades, banks used to work in the same manner using the same traditional business models as banknotes and paper records. In 1967, the first ATM machine was introduced (Kumbhar, 2011). The SWIFT foundation was then established in 1973 to secure money transactions between different banks. Swift messages do not transfer money; they just send PO (Payment Orders) that must be settled by financial institutions worldwide (Scott & Zachariadis, 2014). Recently, new changes took place in the surrounding environment where new digital products appeared, regulations were mandated, and customer behavior patterns were developed (Hirst, 2017). Bitcoin was introduced in 2009, though still not used in traditional banks, but it has emerged a new era of digitizing money and is considered as internet of money (Ali, et al., 2014). With these rapid changes, the need for strong credit scoring systems increases. Some countries have strict scoring systems based on customers’ historical loans and payments records, while other countries have less strict systems where people simply get

Retail banking can be defined as an industry where financial institutions offer mass market banking in which individual customers use local branches of larger commercial banks. Services offered include savings and checking accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit/credit cards.

As users’ major choice of electronic banking transaction is by economic ones like saving service fees and cost, and service non-choice is by financial burden to service use, authentication method for smartphone banking should be made to guarantee to minimize users’ economic burden.

Mobile operators have quickly enabled 4G systems, alongside the inception of 4.5G services, empowering our initial adoption culture to lead the world in service of smartphone banking.

Banking in today’s era is in process of upgrading itself by joining the wave of latest technologies and trends. Currently, it is in the midst of chaos and disruptions and is in process of reshaping its business models to alienate the traditional processes. The driving force for Banks to adopt such changes can be a. Changing customer needs, b. Optimization of cost and Banking Operations, c. Digitization and Automation, d. Streamlining of complex and lengthy processes and e. New competitors in the industry.

The banking industry has seen an unprecedented growth, and the reason for this is due to the technological developments that provide many new platforms for traditional banking services (Sohail and Shaikh,2008) . Mobile banking applications consider the latest edition to get the financial transactions through Smartphone.

Payment solutions have changed drastically over time, going from bartering goods in ancient times, using gold and silver, paying with cash and coins, using credit cards, and now mobile devices. There are five main types of mobile payments: mobile at the point of sale, mobile as the point of sale, mobile payment platform, direct mobile billing, and closed loop mobile payments (1). However, this paper will focus on the three most familiar to college students and young adults.

The figure 4-2 above shows the day to day banking methods that are preferred by customers of all ages. The diagram portrays that the most convenient and preferred way customers choose for their day to day banking activities is mobile banking. Nearly forty-eight percent of the customers use their mobiles for their daily transactions, example transfers, payments etc. Branch banking is the second method preferred by nearly thirty-two percent of the customers. Where online banking with nearly nineteen percent holds the third position atms are the least method customers prefer for their daily banking. None of the customers comment about telephone banking. These preferred methods actually focus the areas where banks should concentrate on providing good customer service. It is very obvious to target customers through their preferred banking methods. For example, in this above diagram it is clearly showing that mobile banking is the most preferred method and atm is the least preferred method and so a bank can earn more customers if it provides better customer service towards mobile banking than atms. Off course the

Citibank had designed its own mobile banking software that can be downloaded and installed on more than 100 handsets over any carrier’s network