Banks driving deposits with value-added services

Slowdown in unsecured loan growth due to rising risk rates: SBI chief

- Anjali Kumari

Banks are increasingly prioritizing value-added services linked to customer accounts to mobilize deposits, said State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman C S Setty on Wednesday.

Moving beyond traditional transactional accounts, they are embracing a more holistic service model as far as deposit accounts are concerned, Setty explained.

Speaking at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit, the chairman of India's largest bank said that traditionally, a savings account is seen primarily as a transactional vehicle, with less emphasis on enhancing customer engagement.

"Today, all of us are focusing on deposit mobilization, which in a way that the customer started gaining the attention from a point of view that the value-added services, which are linked to his account, have gone up," he said.

"Otherwise, a savings account, which is open, is basically a transactional account. And as long as the transactions were there, nobody really bothered about it," he added.

"But today, every one of us is thinking in terms of providing value-added services to our customers, in a much better manner. It's not that the customer service was faulty or people (banks) were not bothered about the customers, but they are gaining much more attention than what else we can do for the depositors," he explained.

Setty also said mutual funds and deposits are not competing products but are complementary ones.