Banks structure tailor-made offers for e-commerce shoppers

With the e-commerce players encouraging customers to shop on mobile-based application from website, banks are also starting to tailor their offers accordingly. Lenders are increasingly announcing offers on credit and debit cards that reward shoppers for transacting on smartphones. 

Jaideep Iyer, group president (financial management) at YES Bank, says that this is a gradual step as consumers are moving towards shopping on the go. “These days most mobile phones are capable of doing these transactions and the penetration of smartphones are increasing every month including in tier 2 cities in India. Even we will be looking at offering these schemes in our YES Bank mobile app eventually. But we will continue to offer them even on the website." he added. 

As per the 'Mobile Internet in India 2014' report by industry body Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and IMRB International, the number of mobile Internet users stood at 173 million at the end of December 2014. This number is likely to go up to 213 million by June this year. 

Recently, Myntra announced that it will shut down its website and will only be available as a mobile application from 15th May. Other players such as Flipkart have also shut down their mobile websites and have been directing its users to applications. Other online retailers such as Amazon, Jabong & Snapdeal have also several announced app-only offers. In such times,, lenders are also customising their offers accordingly. It is not just the private banks, but also public sector banks that have started altering offers on their cards. 

"(In the) Present days, smartphones are available with large number of customers and customers prefer to use them for multiple purposes. Online transactions using mobile applications is fast catching up with customers mainly due to ease of access and completion of transactions using single device. The discounts will be in the form of reward points for use of our Debit cards and not on any specific products," said E K Harikumar, chief general manager (retail), State Bank of Travancore. 

This come at a time when banking on the mobile phones has been on an upward swing. As per the Reserve Bank of India data, the total value of transactions recorded across the banking system at the end of March 2015 was Rs 16,913.82 crore as compared to Rs 3407. 06 crore a year ago. 

Rajiv Anand, Group Executive & Head, Retail Banking, Axis Bank said that it is a natural pull as the consumers are shifting towards banking on the mobile phones. “We have been trying up with mobile-based applications for their app based offers for providing rewards points/additional discount for shopping via Axis bank cards. We will continue to increase these offers accordingly.”