With a populace of over 1 billion, India is an stellar environment for finance, with cutting edge technology bringing the Indian financial scene into the future. India has over 32-thousand ATMs as of December 31, 2007, but an increasing number of customers are finding that the need to visit a bank branch or ATM machine is not what it used to be, thanks to new technological advances.

Banks are moving toward granting members to complete banking transactions using cell telephones and other hand held technology. Banks, in the past, had utilized technology such as text messages to advertise promotions for customers, but electronic transactions will probably replace various types of cash transactions in India within the next few years. The use of technology in banking lowers transaction rates and lessens the need for rapid branch expansion. Now, almost 10% of total banking transactions in India are completed online.

This notion of handheld banking technology is called Mobile Banking, and it is assumed that mobile banking will revolutionize the bank industry in India and eventually all over the world. Already, 85-90% of mobile bankers do not use debit or credit cards; they only use their cell to complete transactions. The technology utilized to make this style of banking possible is the same technology that runs ATM machines, although it is much cheaper to maintain. India is really on the cutting-edge of this swiftly growing area of finance.

An increasing number of Indians are also using the Internet for bank needs, however the majority of bank customers utilizing the Internet limit their activity to monitoring statements and determining whether or not transactions have been completed. The World-Wide-Web also allows bank customers to interact with bank employees to ask questions and inquire about bank products and services, although this is not heavily used so far by Indian bank customers.

Traditionally, Indians have not garnered a great deal of debt, with consumer debt making up just 4% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, compared with over 60% for nations such as South Korea and Taiwan. Banks are willing to join in the increasing debt loads of Indian consumers. Like China and South Asia as a whole, India is one of the largest increasing areas for credit card, ATM card, and cash card services, and studies predict that the credit card market in this region will increase by 15-20% over the next three years. Indian households now save 28% of their extra income.

The bank presence is expanding in India, as more International banks and financial institutions rush to compete for the varying banking needs in the nation. Demographically speaking, half of Indias 1.2 billion populace are under the age of 25, so throughout the next next years, a immense generation of people will be starting their earning years and will have various banking needs. The banks that find a way to give the services Indian banking customers enjoy a influx of new customers and profit in the years to come.

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