India’s nationwide lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic led to a spike in digital banking. By June, multiple banks had switched to video KYC to onboard new customers, and some digital banking figures increased as people got stuck as home. We have compiled the digital banking numbers from the April-June period from four private banks — Axis Bank, ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank — and from State Bank of India, to get a picture of the transformation. Here is a summary of our findings:
Axis Bank
With the pandemic accelerating in India and a nationwide lockdown in place, 75% and 65% of Axis Bank’s fixed deposits and personal loan disbursements in Q1 were sourced via digital channels. Spends via mobile banking increased 174% YoY in Q1. The share of digital transactions among overall transactions stood at 87% at the end of June.
“Our digital channels help us serve our customers during the COVID period. After an initial dip, activity and transaction volumes of digital channels are now back to pre-COVID levels. In fact, in certain areas, such as fixed deposit and mutual funds, we saw growth of 20%-plus on the digital channel through the COVID period,” Amitabh Choudhury, MD and CEO of Axis Bank said on the Q1 investor call.
UPI: Axis Bank claimed a 19% market share in the UPI payments space.
- Transactions by volume: 672 million, up 163% YoY
- Transactions by value: ₹66,160 crore, up 83% YoY
- Virtual Payment Addresses: 109 million
Credit and Debit Cards
Credit card spends had reverted to 75% of pre-COVID average spends by June.
- Debit Cards: ₹7,492 crore spent, dropped by 41% YoY, and 38% QoQ
- Credit Cards: ₹8,055 crore spent, down by 57% YoY, and 56% QoQ
Contribution of digital channels to Q1 business
- 78% of savings accounts, 75% of Fixed Deposits, 65% of personal loans, 51% of credit cards and 48% of new mutual funds
- ~212,000 “digital” savings accounts were opened
Choudhury had said that “onboarding for the full suite of banking products, leveraging video KYC will be launched in a phased manner over the year”.
Sources: Investor Presentation, June 2020 | Q1 Earnings Call Transcript | Press Release for Q1 financial results
ICICI Bank
Mobile banking usage in ICICI Bank shot up by 45.4% YoY in Q1FY21, with 263.20 million transactions completed in the quarter.
UPI: The bank claimed to capture 28% of the UPI payments-to-merchants transactions in June 2020.
- Transactions by value: ₹192.97 billion in Q1FY21, up by 40.6% QoQ, and 3.5x YoY
- Transactions by volume: 413 millions transactions in Q1FY21, up by 15.6% QoQ, 2.8x YoY
Contribution of digital channels to Q1 business: The bank said it uses video KYC to onboard new customer, for salary account, personal loan, and Amazon Pay Credit Card Customers.
- 59% of SIPs, 63% of fixed deposits, 90% of savings accounts transactions done through digital channels
FASTag: The bank claims 38% market share by value in June 2020, citing data from NPCI, which processes FASTag payments.
- Average monthly transactions (by value) in Q1: ₹7.27 billion average monthly transactions, down 44% QoQ, and up 3.7% YoY
Debit and Credit Cards
Debit Cards: Average spends via debit cards in June were 60% higher compared to that in April and May.
- Transactions by value: ₹93.84 billion, down by 43.6% QoQ, and down 45.6% YoY
- Number of cards: 46.7 million, flat over previous quarter, up 4% YoY
Credit Card transactions in June were 79% higher compared to the average in April and May.
- Transactions by value: ₹124.50 billion, down 49.6% QoQ, and down 34% YoY
Source: Investor Presentation Q1
State Bank of India (SBI)
State Bank of India (SBI) said it has 10.86 million UPI users as of Q1. It’s unclear SBI specifically means that it has 283.60 VPAs registered with it. The bank said it has handled over a billion (1,059 million) remit UPI transactions in Q1, and claims to capture 26.71% of the remittance market share as of June.
Contribution of digital channels to business: SBI said it disbursed 1.5 million loans amounting to Rs 19,500 crore via digital lending until June 2020. Of these, 450,000 loans were disbursed digitally in Q1
Debit Cards:
- Transactions by volume: 22.97 crore
- Transactions by value: ₹323.55 billion
- Number of cards: 283.6 million
- Claimed market share: 30.43%
Mobile banking
- Users: 17.4 million as of June 2020
- YONO App: 24 million registrations in total, 2.9 million added in Q1
Payment acceptance touchpoints
- BHIM merchants: 146,000
- Bharat QR: 351,171
- BHIM-Aadhaar-SBI: 973,530
- SBI PoS: 669,474
- BHIM SBI Pay: 428,509
ATMs
- Average ATM transactions per day: 8.2 million per day
- Claimed market share: 28.22%
Source: Investor Presentation Q1
Yes Bank
Yes Bank claimed 37% market share in Payment-to-merchants transactions, per calculations based on transaction volume data released by NPCI. However, Yes Bank did not disclose any specific data on UPI transactions.
UPI
- Transactions by value: Over ₹100,000 crores for June 2020, ₹250,000 crore in Q1
- Transactions by volume: 130 crore
IMPS
- Transactions by value: ₹26,990 crore
- Transactions by volume: 2.5 crore
Aadhaar enabled Payments System (AePS)
- Transactions by value: ₹8,745 crore
- Transactions by volume: 10.7 crore
Numbers on online banking
- Netbanking registered users: 1.9 million; transaction value: ₹38,647 crore
- Yes Mobile, registered users: 1.5 million; transaction value: ₹11,986 crore
- Yes Robot Interactions. 13.3 millions, transactions processed: ~310,000
- Yes Bank money: transactions processed: 1.7 million, transactions by value: ₹727 crore
Debit Card Base: 2.9 million, transaction value: ₹603 crore
Source: Statutory Release Q1 Results | Investor Presentation Q1
Kotak Mahindra Bank
UPI: The bank saw a 1.7x YoY growth in consumer volumes in Q1FY21. There was also 21x YoY growth of registered UPI merchant base as at end of Q1FY21.
- Transactions acquired: 8x YoY
- Consumer UPI P2M (Peer to Merchant) transactions: 2.2x YoY
Contribution of digital channels to business: 97% of recurring deposits, 87% fixed deposits were all sourced via digital channels; 61% of the YoY growth in mobile banking
- Kotak General Insurance: Digital channels contributed to over 35% of business in Q1FY2. Kotak General Insurance is a 100% subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra bank.
Mobile Banking: Kotak Mahindra saw a 31% YoY growth in MAUs. 85% of mobile banking customers stuck only to the app as of June 2020. Customers logged in to mobile banking 24x of net banking logins as of June 2020.
Chatbot: There was also 5x YoY growth in monthly service requests via the bank’s virtual assistant Keya Chatbot as of June.
KayMall: The bank launched an in-App grocery shopping service during the lockdown, which contributed to 26% of total KayMall volume in Q1. KayMall is an additional service on Kotak Mahindra’s existing mobile banking app. It allows users to make faster payments for frequent transactions in categories like e-commerce, by integrating merchant services, shopping, etc.
Source: Q1 Earnings Update
