Yesterday We were at the HDFC Bank Launch event where they Launched India’s 1st SME bank which would help the Budding entrepreneurs and people from small-scale industry could get access to banking facility 24×7. The event was headed by Mr.Aseem Dhru – Group Head – Business Banking, Commodity and Agriculture Finance HDFC Bank Ltd. Non-Executive Director HDFC Securities Ltd.
HDFC Bank launched India’s first SME Bank which would provide access to most of the banking features round the clock.This will allow clients to access a complete suite of services instantly and round-the-clock on the device of their choice, be it a desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile. The main thing is the technology is leveraged here to do away with the need of calling relationship manager or even visiting the branch to carry out banking operation thus saving a considerable amount of time. HDFC has already strong security infrastructure so needless to say that the service that would be provided by the app or desktop would be completely secure.
SMe Bank is the second leg of the ‘Bank Aapki Mutthi Mein’ campaign that was launched for the Bank’s retail customers in December 2014 at Varanasi. With the moving inclination towards HDFC has started to bring the benefits of digitization to its Corporate clients with this initiative, starting with SME.
This is path-breaking. We believe that this will transform the way SME bank today. At the heart of it is speed, convenience, transparency and predictability. Entrepreneurs can utilise the time saved to focus on their core business without having to worry about their banking needs. This will improve their efficiency and productivity. Given the contribution these people make to the country’s GDP and employment creation, this is significant.
Some of the Facts that are available in public domain
- Number of units in the country – 3.6 crore
- Contribution to India’s GDP – 8 percent
- Contribution to India’s manufacturing output – 45 per cent
- Contribution to India’s exports – 40 per cent
- People employed – 8 crore
*Source: http://www.smechamberofindia.com/about_msmes.aspx
What is So different in SME Banking?
For the Existing clients, this is a total Digital banking experience where the control of the Bank account resides in their hands. Following are some of the facilities which they can avail from anywhere.
- One view of all their credit lines with the Bank and the asset outstanding. They can even know the maturity date of Letter of Credit, Bank Guarantees
- Pay and receive all money without even using a checkbook
- Get Letter of Credit, Bank Guarantee, Foreign currency outward remittances, Import bill under collection / LC done from their office
- All Important documents like Stock statements, Insurance, financials etc. can be uploaded with ease to the Bank for smooth continuation of credit facilities
- Get analytics based offers which are relevant to the customer
Tickets and Alerts of renewal/expiry date to facilitate SME’s in timely submissions.
To track the status of the request whenever a client initiates a transaction request, a QR code is sent which can be saved and used to know the status of the request thus ensuring transparency.
