A Case of Choosing a Market

Banking in Urban India has changed, to say the least. Private players, technology playing its part has created some ripples in the business of banking. People/Customer centric service seems to be the direction in which the business is heading. I shall address the way two players one local and the other international has influenced the change and how they have chosen the market.

Citibank, a leading banking firm was one of those banks which entered the market somewhere in the 90's has been instrumental in getting 'technology banking' like internet banking etc into the Indian market. So the target audience(Customers) have always been the ones who rub hands with the latest like the techies/ the ones who use are coherent with the changes the bank gives them.
For many the idea of banking without a teller and the others is quite unimaginable. A visit to the nearby bank is something that is almost habit that seems to have caught most. As an example, E-transfer, E-shopping though a huge market still fails to attract an everyday businessman/shopper! Conservative customers is what we can say to generalise the audiences who do not seem to be the market the bank we are referring to. Citibank typically works at the corporate level, salary accounts we can call them and hence advertising at the individual level is never a concern to them.

But I got to admit as an E-banking Customer of the bank, their website seems to be designed so well with some amazing security features(deduced by the look and feel of it:-) ), hence removing certain fears we all generally have while using these technological tools, making life a lot easier!!
We also have to see the clear target which they have in mind making it easier to satisfy the customer.

ICICI bank, a pioneer we can say, in changing the way banking was done in Urban India. Unlike Citibank, ICICI bank seemed to target everyone. The salary account, an account for the retired talking about the ease at which banking can be done. The onus on their executives in their advertisements can be quite easily seen in their branches as well, generally! They too have E-banking options to the customers, but unlike Citi the weightage on Internet banking is not much. They have caught a bit of all the market share, substantial in some cases. Result being crowded banks, ATM's.

Customer satisfaction is something that the bank always aimed for, and they have managed it well till now. They have managed to capture various markets with all the features which Citi provides, but they have much more to offer than what Citi does. But the long waits at the ATM's is something people are not ready to do.

Markets chosen, markets captured, but the question is sustainance! Competiton from other banks, even the nationalized ones to a great extent is something which needs to be looked at when restricting oneself to a specific market. Markets captured, but the banks/ATM's choking with volumes of customers which they cannot handle is also something which requires to be addressed. Their are many fish in sea and fishermen just move on in case the fish not unavailable!

P.S: Please correct me in case of any factual errors!!

VD