Virtual Banking: From Conventional to Competitive Approach

Abstract

Indian Banking industry is witnessing an unprecedented competition. To stay ahead, banks are coming up with plethora of services to lure customers. Services including 24-hours banking, Service at door step, Telephone banking, Internet banking, Extended Business Hours (EBH), Speedy processing are only a few to mention. Greater part of today's bank transactions take place somewhere else other than in branch premises. This shows the growth of banks in India. With convenience, speed, efficiency and effectiveness, these virtual banks, in effect have opened up a new world of possibilities and brought major changes in providing a broad range of services. Virtual banks are now seen as an answer to the challenge of designing a new service channel that is fully secure, functional and which customers can readily learn to use and trust it. Virtual banking, a powerful value added tool, has become the focal point for banks to attract and retain customers. Though, the aim of these services is to satisfy customers, there is a need to understand customer awareness, perception and importantly the level of satisfaction. In the present research work, attempts are made to measure these issues on four virtual banking services offered by banks in Berhampur city. These services include Automated Teller Machine (ATM), Telephone Banking, Internet Banking and Integrated Voice Response System (IVRS). This is possibly going to be reflected in the feedbacks from the selected sample respondents, based on a structured questionnaire of a 3-point Likert scale. The questionnaire, containing demographics of the customer, issues of awareness, perception and the level of satisfaction are very well interpreted with the help of simple random sampling method. Through the findings of the study, we wish to express that, banks have to do a lot to take advantage of virtual banking services.