ICICI Bank leads with Online Banking through Facebook

Just like Google is synonymous to the verb ‘search’ on Internet, the sheer magnanimity of Facebook’s brand image has made it synonymous to the exploding world of social media.

Just like the rich attracts more richness and wealth in any economy; Facebook, with nearly 45 million users in India, has become the cornerstone in the whole gamut of social media services – be it gaming, business promotion, ecommerce and now even basic banking services.

Just as the corporate world realizes that people spend a majority of their time online on the social media platforms; on offer are basic banking and financial services – so as to enable customers to quickly go and check their account details, in trying to build deeper customer relationship with them.

In fact, it’s not just the banking institutions that have taken a step forward to lure more customers, but also the Indian equity brokerage houses that are beginning to make their presence felt on Facebook by allowing customers to carry out transactions on the social networking site.

As pointed out by Economic Times, HDFC Securities wants to tap the strength of online presence of social media by integrating its stock trading portal on Facebook with widgets that give real time stock quotes and other information feeds, subject to the permission of the sector regulator to fiddle with the digital media.

On the other hand, ICICI Bank is one of the early movers to tap social media platform to let customers access online banking features through Facebook. India’s largest private bank now allows its customers to discover an all new banking experience – such as checking account details, getting account statements, request for cheque books and upgrade debit card – right from their Facebook homepage through ‘Your Bank Account’ App.

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For those apprehensive of carrying out financial transaction on social media platforms, the bank claims to have addressed your security fears as all communication is secured and encrypted, no data is stored on Facebook in order to allay your privacy concerns, and registration is subject to Debit Card and PIN authentication. Unlike details of other Facebook activities, the banking activities and account details will not be posted and visible on Facebook.

Thus, the bank can focus their energy on social media to ensure interconnectivity through this medium. Having said all above, what interests me more is whether ICICI Bank limits its banking integration services to non-monetary transactions like checking account info and requests for cheque books only?

Do they allow monetary transactions involving inter-bank money transfer or third part funds transfer? Do they allow booking online FDs? Do they allow executing payment of utility bills through their ‘Your Bank Account’ App?

Would be glad if any ICICI Bank customer over here throws light on these aspects…