Indian Banks Surpassed Global Average, But Have Potential To Rise Further: Deloitte
Indian banks are outperforming their global peers in digital maturity score compared to the global average, however, also have the opportunity and potential to rise further and become “digital champions, said Deloitte India in its digital banking maturity survey.
The report titled "Digital Banking Maturity (DBM)” stated that the Indian banks displayed noteworthy performance in the survey, surpassing the global average in several key customer journeys. Being at the forefront of digital transformation, Indian banks are well-placed compared with the global average.
The 1,208 functionalities scored were split almost equally between internet banking features and mobile banking features. Indian banks scored 3 per cent higher than the global average in mobile banking, and 1 per cent higher in internet banking. They bagged the titles of “digital smart followers” and “digital adopters”.
In India, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has been an important enabler of digital banking transformation. For instance, the Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile (JAM) trinity, Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the Account Aggregator (AA) framework, etc have played a key enabling role.
It added that compared with "Digital champions”, Indian banks have a significant opportunity to increase their digital maturity, particularly in two customer journeys – day-to-day banking (while UPI is a unique and globally recognised lever, the delta is more about personal financial management and beyond banking) and expanding relationships.
Within these two customer journeys, the most relevant sub-steps offering significant potential for value creation are personal financial management, beyond banking, ecosystem and account aggregation, and account and product management.
For instance, at the time of the survey, a notable 25 per cent of the Indian banks offered the functionality for customers to set their financial goals, while 57 per cent of digital champions did so.
At present, “digital champions” enjoy a lead in their digital transformation endeavours across customer journeys and provide a compelling user interface to customers.
Deloitte India in the report mentioned that by making strategic investments, particularly over the past two years, "Digital champion” banks have gained a significant advantage over their peers. During the measurement period, Digital champions, on average, showed 0.1 per cent higher return on assets and 1.5 per cent higher return on equity compared with their peers.
Himanish Chaudhuri, Partner and Financial Services Industry Leader, Deloitte India said, "In an era marked by shifting consumer preferences, fintech innovation, and regulatory changes, banks in India have done very well to harness the potential of the digital ecosystem around them and achieved significant growth in digital maturity."
However, Chaudhuri added that there is more for them to do; there is a need for greater customer engagement, and sharper solutions that would help mitigate various pain points. Success requires an enduring mission to deliver exceptional experiences for all types of users – big and small.
