Innovation games bankers play

Innovation is the key to everything. Let it be any business or anything else what matters the most is the word innovation. You can't succeed in any environment if you are not innovative. This is the philosophy used by Banks also, to succeed. In past there were many things which were done by banks in order to become innovative, some succeed and some didn't but what matters here is teh fact that they tried to do something. Below I will sit certain example to tell you how banks became innovative.

• The innovation game was started by ICICI Bank, in 1997,  when the opened there first ATM at corporate headquarters (Infosys) to tap the company's salary accounts.

• Deepak Mathur, a 36-year old software professional, approached a public sector bank for a loan to buy a flat at Powai, his application was processed at lightning speed and the bank agreed to lend him 90 per cent of the value of the property in addition to the cost of stamp duty and registration charges, but the problem arised when he came to know that the value of the property was much less as per state governments valuation. This posted a problem for him as now he had to pay more from his pocket. Now the banker came into picture, he decided to add Rs. 100,000 to the amount paid by bank as a short term loan, making the costumer happy and thus earning customer loyality. This is innovation of idea.

• ABN Amro Bank's Bancafe is another example of innovation. They joined hands with Barista Coffee Chain and at Bancafe, a customer can walk in anytime and look at the interactive screen on insurance and mutual fund products and strike deals for car loans or personal loans for foreign travel even as he sips hot coffee with the travel agent sitting next to him. 

• SBI came up with "Teacher Plus", a product where the teaching community was offered a bundle of products like home loans, car loans, personal loans and so on at a concessional rate. Similar products were subsequently introduced for lawyers, doctors and  policemen.

• For companies, HDFC Bank introduced the concept of supply change management where a manufacturing company, product distributors, suppliers and end users are kept in the same loop.

• IDBI bank came up with the concept of 110% Home loans.

• Another innovation IDBI Bank is "ATM Next" -- possibly the first service of its kind in the world. The bank is downloading information from the Internet and making it available to customers at the ATMs. This includes live cricket scores, news headlines, local movie listings and emergency contact numbers -- clearly a service beyond banking.

Well these are just a few examples of innovation. But one thing is a surity that in future technology will become the greatest asset of innovation. Till recently, bankers used to talk about preferred customers; now the dividing lines between priority customers and ordinary customers are breaking down (except for the very high net worth group) as services can be offered to all at virtually zero cost.