HDFC has today announced launch of its Hindi Mobile Banking application on Android as well as launch of Hindi SMS banking service.
It has always surprised me that in India, we give such low importance to local regional languages. About 125 million Indians speak English, while over 500 million speak Hindi. Yet, HDFC is probably the only bank which (now) has Hindi language Mobile banking.
HDFC Bank Hindi Android App
Coming back to the application itself – The HDFC Bank Hindi Android app [play store link] will allow users to use range of banking services that include pay utility bills, credit card bills, etc., view Account summaries and Fixed Deposit summaries, transfer funds including transfers to other bank customers, Request statements, cheque book, stop payment & more.
HDFC bank had launched English Android app in August of this year, and this Hindi app is nearly identical, except that this one is in Hindi.
It is interesting to note that although the announcement of launch has been made today, the app seems to have been uploaded around the same time on Android play store as its English version (August end). Though, it has has an update date of November 19th, the hindi app downloads have occurred previously, as comments on the app show previous dates.
See the screenshot below.
Hindi SMS Banking Services
Along with Android app, HDFC also announced launch of Hindi SMS services enabling banking transactions on even the most basic handsets. The Hindi SMS banking service allows customers to carry out a set of 10 banking transactions (balance enquiry, mini statement and stop cheque)
HDFC Bank also made another important enhancement to their mobile banking apps – Launch of Netsafe cards. These virtual cards are basically single use cards that allow online transactions on e-commerce websites where debit cards are not accepted.
I have been HDFC Bank customer for over 10 years, and I use the Android app almost on daily basis. I also use Netsafe cards very often, especially when I need to make payment on international sites. Now with launch of netsafe on mobile, I can nearly do everything that I want on mobile itself.
Kudos to HDFC Bank and I hope that other banks also take a cue from this!
[…] to have an average transaction size of Rs 34-35,000. HDFC Bank was among the first to launch a Hindi based platform for conducting mobile banking way back in […]