ICICI Bank has opened sixty-one 24x7 electronic branches across 33 cities. Eight of these electronic branches are in Tamil Nadu, including one at Coimbatore. The project is currently in the trial phase.
“This initiative of an automated branch offering self-service solutions round-the-clock aims to provide customers an opportunity to leverage technology and transact at their convenience,” its Executive Director Rajiv Sabharwal said.
The bank has embarked on this initiative to embrace the environmental objective of ‘go green’ and offering flexible banking hours.
Some of the key services offered by these electronic branches include cash deposit with instant credit into account (only for ICICI Bank customers), cash withdrawal, cheque deposit with instant acknowledgement, video conferencing with a bank executive for product information and credit card queries, an Internet banking kiosk, phone banking, printing of account statements, placing a request for demand drafts, funds transfer, cheque book request and so on.
During the trial run in January, the bank is said to have registered 1.2 million transactions in the 61 electronic branches.
Giving a snapshot of the transactions that took place at the electronic branch in Coimbatore, an ICICI Bank spokesperson said around 30,850 transactions were carried out in January of which 63 per cent were cash withdrawals and 37 per cent non-ATM transactions comprising fund transfer, cheque deposit and cheque book request, statement printing and cash deposit.
Since launch in May 2013, non-ATM transactions have grown by more than 300 per cent and around 20 per cent of such transactions happened post-banking hours and on holidays.