More Banks Cater to Rural Indians
Engineers at the Indian Institute of Technology here smile as they watch a magic brown box grumble, groan and then spit out 12 dirty 10-rupee notes, each valued at about 18 European cents.
They have built India's first rural automated teller machine to serve remote areas of the subcontinent. It can process the worn notes in small denominations that are the main currency in Indian villages, and at $800, or about �650, the machine costs less than one-twentieth the price of a regular ATM.
India's Icici Bank Ltd., with the help of the institute in Chennai -- formerly Madras -- and others, has developed the village ATM from inexpensive homemade parts and programming. Despite its low price tag, the machine is built to survive extreme weather and power outages. It can tell when two ragged notes get stuck together and can scan fingerprints to identify rural savers who are illiterate or are reluctant to use a personal-identification number. The ATM will be tested at an Icici branch in Chennai this month. If it works, the rugged ATM eventually could be used at hundreds of Internet kiosks in remote areas of India.
"You wouldn't find 10-rupee notes in any ATM anywhere," but rural consumers need them, says Pavitra Ramanujam, a project leader for n-Logue Communications, a Chennai rural-Internet-service company helping to develop the ATM with the institute and Icici. "We have built it from scratch because there is no easy access to banking in remote areas."
The project is more than an altruistic attempt to improve the lives of rural Indians. It is the latest example of how India's nimble private-sector banks try to use local high-tech skills to squeeze profits out of small savers.
Indian companies such as HDFC Bank Ltd. and Icici didn't exist until deregulation opened the market to private banks in the 1990s. Now, they boast millions of customers and are among the most-profitable and fastest-growing companies in India. HDFC and Icici both have seen their profits grow by more than 30% annually during the past five years.
The trick, they say, is technology. In a country where most potential savers make less than $100 a month, the banks have mastered ways of attracting small customers, even when they hold accounts with a minimum balance of $100. Setting up a national network of full-fledged branches was too expensive, so the banks expanded using ATMs, phone banking and the Internet to reach new customers inexpensively.
"The challenge is that the transaction sizes are very small by international standards," says Neeraj Swaroop, country head of retail banking at HDFC in Bombay. "We were able to do it in an economically viable manner by investing in the right kind of technology."
Thanks to affordable technologies, the most advanced banks in India say more than 70% of transactions are done outside branches. "They are aggressively targeting the customer like never before," says Gurunath Mudlapur, head of research at Khandwala Securities in Bombay. "They are using a lot of innovation for the Indian context."
All this represents a huge change for the average Indian consumer. Just five years ago -- and even today in many of the stodgier state-owned banks -- cashing a check, transferring money or paying a phone bill meant standing in long lines and waiting as long as a week for the transaction's required multiple rubber stamps and signatures.
Today, the new banks use technology to open leaner branches. They have centralized the important decision making and moved back-office operations online and to their own internal computer networks, and they only need pay for the space and salaries of a few tellers and salespeople at each branch.
The banks also are using ATMs that have been modified for India's needs. In addition to being used for depositing and withdrawing money and for checking-account balances, the machines can be used to transfer money, pay electricity bills, taxes or Internet connections, and for buying or selling mutual funds.
Icici Bank account holders can use ATMs to make donations to their favorite Hindu temple. They even get a receipt to present to their gods when they go to pray. The bank has ATM vans that make regular rounds in the more-remote neighborhoods in Bombay. About half of Icici's transactions are done through its network of more than 1,700 ATMs. "We have changed the way the Indian consumer is doing banking," says Chanda Kochhar, executive director in charge of retail banking at the Bombay bank.
The banks also are using the Internet to lower costs and reach customers, setting up Web sites that can do most things the ATMs can do, as well as transfer money abroad or buy railway tickets. For the many Indians who don't have computers at home, there are computer stands at bank branches.
Online and phone-based services have vastly improved in recent years, say bankers who remember when lines for ATM networks were so unstable that banks had to wire machines with three separate lines as a hedge against being disconnected. Early attempts at phone banking were stifled because Indians still used rotary-dial phones that couldn't communicate with computers. And then there was the problem of consumer education: Guards posted at ATM booths used to spend time just teaching people how to swipe their cards to open the door to the machine, bankers say.
Deregulation, competition and a bit of investment and technology from abroad have improved the information infrastructure in the past five years. More important has been the low cost of building these systems in India. India's inexpensive and talented programmers can write the programs and build the networks needed to serve millions at a fraction of the cost in the developed world. Icici Bank estimates that by using local talent, it has spent about one-tenth the amount on technology that a similar-sized bank would have had to lay out in the U.S.
"We couldn't start with a model where the costs are in line with the global standard but the revenues are only in line with the Indian customer," says Icici's Ms. Kochhar. "Our average relationship size is much smaller."
Some foreign banks in India also are thinking smaller. Citigroup Inc.'s Citibank, which targets the wealthy in most Asian countries, was the first in India to open online-only accounts for small savers. For full access to Citibank's services at its branches, people need an account balance of more than $2,000. But customers with only $20 to deposit can get special convenience accounts whereby they do everything through ATMs, the Internet or the phone. The number of these accounts has surged more than 60% in the past year to one million.
"It's a branchless account," says Sarvesh Sarup, country business manager of the global consumer group at Citibank in Bombay. "It's Citibank for $20."
印度银行吸引小储户有新招
在印度理工学院(Indian Institute of Technology, 简称ITT)真奈(Chennai, 原称马德拉斯)分校里，一个神奇的褐色箱子先发出一阵由强到轻的响声，然后吐出12张面值10卢比的旧纸币来，此时工程师们不禁发出了会心的微笑。
他们成功地研制出了印度首台旨在服务于偏远农村地区小储户的自动提款机。这种提款机能处理印度农村里最常用的小额纸币及破旧纸币，而且成本只有800美元，还不到一般提款机的二十分之一。
在印度理工学院真奈分校等机构的协助下，印度ICICI Bank开发的这种农村提款机采用了价格不贵的国产部件和程序。尽管价格低廉，但这种机器能抵御恶劣天气和断电的袭击。它还能识别两张破损纸币叠在一起的情况，甚至能通过指纹扫描来确定那些不识字或是不愿输入个人身份号码的农村储户。这种提款机本月还将在ICICI Bank的真奈分行里进行测试。如果顺利通过测试，这种结实的机器将逐步出现在印度偏远地区的数百个互联网资讯亭里。
N-Logue Communications是真奈一家经营农村地区互联网服务的公司，它也参与了这种新型提款机的研制。该公司的项目负责人帕维特罗?罗摩努亚姆(Pavitra Ramanujam)说，其他任何地方的自动提款机都不会出现10卢比的纸币（合22美分），但农村用户需要。开发工作是从零开始的，因为偏僻地区的银行很少。
研制方便农村小储户的自动提款机不仅仅是改善农民生活的善举，它又一次证明头脑灵活的印度私有银行试图利用国产高科技从小储户身上赚钱。
直到上世纪90年代印度放松银行业的管制之后，HDFC Bank和ICICI Bank等私有银行才开始存在。目前，这些私有银行拥有上百万客户，成为印度利润最丰厚、发展最快的企业之一。HDFC和ICICI的利润在过去5年里每年的增长幅度超过了30%。
这些银行表示，其中的关键就在于技术。在印度这样一个大多数潜在储户的月收入还不到100美元的国家里，它们掌握了在吸引小客户的同时保持盈利的方法，即使是这些客户的最低存款余额只有100美元。建立遍布全国的大型分支机构开支太大，因此这些银行通过设立自动提款机、电话银行、网上银行以及手机银行进行廉价扩张。
HDFC的印度零售银行业务负责人尼拉吉?斯瓦鲁普(Neeraj Swaroop)说：“挑战在于按照国际标准衡量，交易的规模非常小，但我们能通过合适的技术投资来实现盈利。”
这些年轻的银行是印度企业家们利用低成本的国产技术、服务于国内日益富足和高要求的中产阶级的成功创业典范。
得益于可承受的技术费用，印度最先进的银行称目前70%以上的交易都不是在分支机构的柜面上完成的。孟买Khandwala Securities的研究部负责人古鲁纳特?穆德拉普(Gurunath Mudlapur)说：“它们从未像现在这样积极瞄准客户，它们在印度的特定环境下采用了许多创新技术。”
这一切给印度普通消费者带来了巨大的变化。就在5年前兑现支票、转帐或是支付电话帐单还意味著要排很长的队，或是等上一个星期，等待交易完成所需的无数图章和签字。当然，许多机构臃肿的国有银行到现在依然如此。
如今，那些后起之秀利用科技建立起高效而精简的分支机构，运营成本也下降了。它们把重要的决策活动集中化，同时把后台操作通过互联网和银行内部网络搬到了网上，因此每个分支机构只需支付营业场地费和几个出纳和销售的工资。
HDFC的斯瓦鲁普说：“我们只需对电信设备以及前期销售服务人员进行投资。出纳和客户服务人员为客户开立帐户后，贷款、交易文件等重要活动都是由网上的后台操作人员处理的。“
这些银行还采用了为适应印度需要而经过改动的自动提款机。除了能处理存款、取款以及核查帐户余额外，这些提款机还能进行转帐、支付电费、税金、上网费和买卖共同基金等。
ICICI Bank的客户还可通过自动提款机向自己膜拜的印度教庙宇捐款。他们甚至还可以获得捐款凭条，在朝拜的时候献给诸神。该行还有装有自动提款机的货车，定期在孟买周边相对偏远的地区巡回服务。目前，ICICI约一半的交易是通过1,700多台自动提款机完成的。
昌达?科赫汉(Chanda Kochhar)是这家总部位于孟买的银行负责零售银行业务的执行董事。他说：“我们改变了印度消费者与银行打交道的方式。人们现在认为这种随时随地的银行服务是理所当然的了。”
银行还利用互联网来降低成本和扩大客户群，它们的网站不仅能履行自动提款机的大部分功能，还能把资金转至海外或是购买火车票。至于许多家里没有电脑的印度人，他们可以到银行分支机构的电脑间上网。客户还可以通过电话银行呼叫中心处理交易，呼叫中心里有上百名接线员帮助客户转帐、支付帐单或是签发新的支票簿。拥有手机的客户则可以通过发送短信来核查帐户余额、了解薪水是否到帐，或是支付帐单。
银行家们说，网上银行和电话银行服务在近几年里发展迅猛。他们回忆说，以前的自动提款机网络非常不稳定，以至于银行不得不分出3条单独线路，以防网络中断。电话银行早期的发展受到了遏制，因为印度当时仍使用不能与电脑联网的旋转拨号电话。接下来还有对客户的教育问题。自动提款机亭子里的守护人员过去要花大量时间来教人们如何刷卡打开亭子的门。
在过去5年里，放松管制、引入竞争以及来自海外的投资和技术改善了印度银行业的信息基础设施。更重要的是，在印度建立这些设施的成本很低。印度那些天才的程序员们能自己编写程序并建立为数百万客户服务的网络，但开发成本与发达国家相比是微不足道。ICICI Bank估计，通过利用本国的技术人才，其技术投入只有美国同等规模银行的十分之一。
ICICI的科赫汉说：“我们起步之初绝对不能采用一个成本与全球标准相当、但收入却依赖印度消费水平的经营模式。我们的客户大多规模较小。”
一些外国银行也开始注重印度市场中的小客户。花旗银行(Citibank)在亚洲的大多数国家都瞄准了富人，但在印度率先推出了面向小储户的网上银行帐户服务。如欲享受花旗银行各分支机构的服务，客户的帐户余额必须保持在2,000美元以上。但那些只想存20美元的储户可以开设Suvidha帐户，即方便帐户。一旦开户，客户就可通过自动提款机、互联网或是电话完成远程银行服务。去年，这种帐户的开户数量猛增了60%至100万户，其中99%的交易不是在银行分支机构的柜面上完成的。
花旗银行驻孟买的全球消费者集团印度业务经理萨维什?萨鲁普(Sarvesh Sarup)说：“这是一种不依赖分行的帐户。只要存入20美元，就可以享有花旗银行的服务。”
