Internet Banking? Mobile Banking? Sorry, please say it again, do you mean Digital Banking?

Long ago there was a time when people could access the internet only through their bulky personal computers. You may say ‘long ago’ sounds a bit dramatic because it must have been barely 10 year ago that the PC was the only means for all of us to access the net. But like Ice Age, Stone Age and Iron Age we are living in a Digital Age. And the time in this Digital Age is calculated by the Moor’s Law. Way back in 1965, Gordon Moor had predicted that the computing power will double every two years. So by the standards of Moor’s Law, the primary means of accessing the net through PCs is a relic of 5 digital generations ago. That is long ago indeed.       

I never cease to be amused when people – bankers for god’s sake – use the terms Internet and Mobile Banking. Somehow what is unsaid or implied is that the former is accessed through desktops, the good old Personal Computers or laptops if you will. On the other hand the latter suggests carrying out banking using a mobile app or over SMS or even in some developing countries over USSD.  

But what happens when you do your banking transaction using a tablet, a pad or a smart phone? You simply type mybank.com on your mobile browser and start transacting. So is it now internet banking or mobile banking? As a fact of the matter there are even two separate regulatory guidelines for Internet and Mobile Banking in India.

Staggering 80% of the total internet users in India access the net using mobile phones. Though there is no reliable data available, it will be safe to assume equal proportion of the customers must be carrying out their banking transactions using their mobile phones. More over with the advance technology available today, most of the websites anyway detect if a browser making request for a webpage is coming from a ‘desktop’ or a mobile phone or a tablet and render a page suitable for the screen size of the device making such request.

With the launch of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) in India most of the e commerce transactions will – in reality – be m commerce transactions as a customer will be required to authorize the payment using an MPIN after receiving a payment request on the mobile phone. So as and when  UPI becomes the preferred mode of payment, the end point of all e commerce transactions will actually be a mobile phone  irrespective of whether the goods were purchased on a merchant’s website, in the mobile application or at a shop.   

As for security of an online banking transaction carried out through a particular device say a desktop or a mobile phone there is no more or less vulnerability due to using one or the other.

I don’t want to speculate here whether PCs will be extinct or not but one does not need to be a visionary to realize that most of the incremental access of the net will be through mobile phones or handheld devices. And as a corollary most of the incremental “internet Banking” transactions will be done using mobile phones.

So Banks, Customers and even Regulators need to start using a more generic term Digital Banking for all online transactions regardless of which device is used for carrying out such transactions. There is also a need for a unified Digital Banking regulation in India instead of the banks having to refer to two  separate guidelines.  

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