E-Banking, the most hear word now-a-days has took our lives in a very impressive manner. In simple words, e-banking is a system which makes life of people of all age group easy and comfortable. E-Banking h online banking or web banking is basically a facility given to the customers by the bank to help the customers to conduct the financial transaction through the authorised bank website by sitting in any part of the world.
However, in India most of the banks has started the E-Banking but ‘ICICI BANK’ was the first bank in India to introduce the E-Banking system to the customers. By introducing this system to its customers in year 1997, ICICI BANK has become one of the best banks of India.
E-Banking has many names like e banking, virtual banking, internet banking or online banking. E-Banking is not only helpful in transactions but it is also useful for various other banking works. Through, E-Banking customer can also access his or her account and can come across all the policies or changes that a bank make as per needs. Most fascinating thing is that some banks are internet based only, they do not have any physical branches at all their whole system is based on E-Banking system itself.
The Reserve Bank Of India has divided the E-Banking system into three categories for the convenience of bank and customers both. The categories are:
1) Information Only System – This is system which contains all the information about bank policies, products, loans, interest rates, features and many more such information that are required for a customer to go well with requirements of bank.
2) Electronic Information Transfer System – This system helps customers to do the financial transactions , to know the account balance and statements of account that are issued by the bank on regular basis. Here the customer identification and authentication both are very important and essential.
3) Fully Electronic Transactional System-This system enables customer to submit their transactions or applications for online update or about any sort of discomfort they faced.
E-Banking has more advantages rather than just sort of comfort. It helps in saving paper as many of our work is done only thus the paper work is reduced which in turn saves paper which makes E-Banking environment-friendly. Online banking also helps to reduce the human error in the processes of banking as most of the work is done using the system.
E-Banking saves both money and time of the customer as he/she does not have to visit the branch for every transaction. One big advantage is that a customer can access his account from anywhere 24×7 and does not need to rely on banking times and place of the bank.
Apart from user point of use, online banking is also very useful for the bank itself as sometimes errors made by the customer in any work create a huge issue between the bank and the customer. This can also happen because of the different handwritings of different customers which makes it difficult for the bank employee to understand what is written on banking papers but internet banking it doesn’t happen as all the work is done by the system and type of the handwriting is defined and also makes it understandable. In today’s world, providing the best E-Banking facility to its customers is the main motive of all the banks as it defines the status of the bank.
In Covid pandemic also the banking world in India didn’t come to standstill because E-Banking help the bank to continue their work and provide all the banking requirements to its customers through online mode.
In India, E-Banking includes smart cards, mobile banking, door step banking, ATMS(Automated Teller Machines) and many more such things that are simple and easy for bank customers to understand. One most important thing is the safety precautions that should be done by the customers to keep their bank account safe and secure. FOR EXAMPLE, customer should share not their PIN or passwords with anyone even not with the bank employees and customer must change their PIN or passwords on a regular basis and also ensure that their logged in session is properly logged out.
As everything comes with some advantages as well some disadvantages, same as with the case of Online Banking or E-Banking. Even though E-Banking has made everyone lives comfortable and easy in terms of banking work but still now -a-days there is a need to remain alert in E-Banking as sometimes during online transactions cyber crime takes place, for example- when anyone makes a online payment to the respective authority but the money does not receive to the respected authority bank account because somebody has done a cyber crime during the transaction. There are many such disadvantages such as because of connectivity problems and need of proper banking websites with full cyber security.
Now, the world has change so everyone needs to walk with the changing and developing world.
By
Mahak Agarwal