After SMEs, HDFC Bank mulls digital services for big corporates

Mumbai, July 1: After launching comprehensive digital banking services for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) clients on Thursday, private sector lender HDFC Bank is now working on doing the same for its large corporate clients, country head – business banking — Aseem Dhru told FE.

With the launch on Thursday, the bank became the first in the country to come out with a digital banking platform that specifically caters to the banking needs of SMEs, allowing them access to various banking services around the clock through their computers, tablets and phones.

SME clients of the bank can now perform transactions such as getting a letter of credit or a bank guarantee and foreign currency outward remittances through the online platfor m.

“We looked at the small and medium businesses, which is a large sector for the bank, spread across the length and breadth of the country, to see how we can change their banking experience," Dhru said. He added that the new platform, called SME Bank, enables an SME client to perform every possible transaction online and they wouldn't even need to own a cheque book.

For the bank, this was the first phase of the launch. It has already identified a few more transactions that it could digitise in future phases with the ultimate aim of digitising all forms of interaction with the client.

“Earlier, this service was only available for retail customers, and now we have opened it out to SMEs as well. Now we will work towards doing the same for our large corporate clients,” Dhru said.