of Société Générale, has announced significant increases in the
take-up of its direct banking services – a trend that is likely to
continue as the country’s leading banks hone their multi-channel
strategies and customers begin to understand the options available
to them, says Dan Jones.
Rosbank, the Russian bank in which France’s Société Générale
(SocGen) holds a 50 percent plus one share stake, has reported a
115 percent increase in online banking customer numbers for 2008 –
a sign, perhaps, that direct banking is finally beginning to take
off in the region.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Russia, the world’s largest country and home
to 142 million citizens spread across 11 time zones, should be an
obvious target in which direct banking can flourish, but
multi-channel strategies remain nascent at best.
Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank, announced in
a strategy document released late last year (see RBI 604)
that it wants to conduct 75 percent of all retail transactions via
remote channels by 2009, but its existing direct banking offerings
are only now being rolled out. The bank will introduce a fully
functional mobile and internet bank in Moscow in 2009, with
preferential pricing schemes intending to attract more customers to
the new media.
Despite the relative paucity of offerings in
Russia, the appetite for such services remains at a level similar
to that seen around the world, suggesting that Russia too could
witness a rapid migration from branch to remote channels in
future.
The evidence provided by Rosbank is the most
compelling: while the number of retail customers using its online
banking services rose by 115 percent last year, the number of
mobile banking clients quadrupled and the number of m-banking
transactions made quintupled over the same period.
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By GlobalDataOverall numbers, however, remain very low: the
bank had 40,000 online banking users and 72,000 m-banking customers
as of end 2008, according to Alexander Seryakov, head of the remote
service department at Rosbank. Seryakov, speaking to RBI,
estimated that the total number of online and m-banking users in
Russia overall stands at just 1.2 to 1.5 million people.
Nonetheless, the channel’s upside potential
continues to encourage banks to invest time and resources in
scaling up their offerings. In terms of user interest, Seryakov
believes that 2009 will see similar or superior growth rates to
those witnessed in 2008.
Loans and deposits online
The online services available at
Rosbank include loans, deposits and cards, with the typical
procedure on the asset side involving customers making an online
loan request and subsequently arranging a meeting at a nearby bank
branch (the bank has one of the largest branch networks in Russia
with 700 units).
Rosbank’s ‘Mobile
Client-Bank’ allows customers to perform a range of operations
including the checking of transactions, making public utility and
other bill payments to over 170 providers, transferring funds
between accounts, and blocking or unblocking bank cards.
The bank believes that its distributive
capabilities will also give it the edge in the m-banking stakes:
Russia’s geographical scope is such that mobile phone operators
tend to function on a regionalised basis, and as such there are
numerous partnerships that must be formed in order to develop a
truly nationwide m-banking operation. Rosbank has now finalised
agreements with 22 regional mobile operators, an achievement
Seryakov said has allowed the bank “to seize a big territory with
our service”.
Reaching the underbanked populace is a key
strategic driver, and Seryakov added: “In developing the Mobile
Client-Bank system we have headed for the regions where people
still have problems with high quality and convenient bank services.
The reasons for this are the insufficient density of outlets of any
bank and the low quality and high cost of internet connections. On
the other hand, almost everyone has a mobile phone”.
Online security, ever a concern in Russia, is
also rigorously monitored, he said. “Security is the top priority
for the bank and for our remote banking service. It is constantly
monitored. There are three tiers of security at the internet bank
and reliable protection levels for the Mobile Client-Bank as
well.”
But while m-banking is an emerging channel in
Russia, the technology and innovations which power the service have
attracted interest elsewhere. Rosbank’s Mobile Client-Bank,
developed without the assistance of its parent French company, has
become one of the leading innovations in the SG Group, Seryakov
said. That may lead to SocGen applying the tenets of the system
elsewhere.
“They are very interested in the service. We
suppose that this system may be reproduced in any bank of the group
located in a region applying GSM mobile standards.”
With a relatively large customer base to
leverage – the bank had around three million individual customers
in 2008 – Seryakov is ambitious in his vision of the future for
direct banking at Rosbank. “We suppose that in the near future over
45 percent of clients will use remote services,” he concluded.
