Bank of Baroda accelerates thrust on mobile banking

“Mobile banking — app-based banking — won't be a small part of our bank; it will be the bank,” said Sanjiv Chadha, Managing Director and CEO, Bank of Baroda, during a post-earnings call with the media.

“All other operations of the bank would revolve around the mobile banking app,” Chadha asserted.

Bank of Baroda’s mobile banking application ‘bob World’ has registered 14 million active users since its launch on September 8, 2021, the company said in an investor presentation on November 10. 

The state-owned lender released its digital banking platform to provide banking services under one roof. The application has 4 million daily active users, and clocks 6 million daily transactions, according to the investor presentation.

Bank of Baroda has revamped its previous M-Connect Plus application into a super app, in a move which is in line with the growing digital banking ecosystem in India. The bob World app was piloted on August 23.

'Bob World' is also in line with what the country’s largest lender State of Bank of India has done with YONO, an integrated digital platform that offers services including travel bookings, online shopping, and medical bill payments.

Bank of Baroda’s customers can use 'bob World' to save, invest, borrow and shop, which are the four pillars the bank is betting on. Domestic and global customers can avail of more than 225 services in a single app, which cover about 95 percent of retail banking offerings.

It aims to drive engagement with e-commerce  and investing functionalities with milestone-based rewards across categories. Users can also buy insurance through the application.

“It is necessary to see what customers want in today's time,” Chadha said. The customer does not want to come to the branch to check his balance or for remittances, he added.

“So, it becomes crucial that we meet the customer where he wants to do business,” Chadha told reporters.

The application allows users to open their account digitally in 10 minutes with instant virtual debit card issuance. They can also borrow through online loan applications in three or four clicks, and get instant disbursal for selected loan products.

Around 85 percent of the transactions were done digitally in the quarter ended September 2021, Bank of Baroda said in its presentation. And one-third of the users were active digitally as of September 30, 2021.

The bank has also given the user interface a modern look for an “intuitive experience” to its users, and “is carefully crafted to balance the needs of the millennial users with that of the more experienced customers,” the bank said in a press statement in September 2021.

“Embedded finance is a big theme across the ‘bob World’ application, as is the enriching loyalty programme, which underlies all digital interactions with the bank,” Chadha had said then.