Physical branches will not disappear in the future because customers still want to come to come to branches according to Paresh Sukhthankar, Deputy MD HDFC Bank.

Delivering the keynote address on day 2 of the Outlook Money Conclave on Thursday, Sukhthankar said that the market was large enough for niche players such as payments banks and wallets to co-exist with full service banks.

“If a bank does everything that these niche banks do and is able to provide all the services,then it will not lose market share. Else they will,” Sukhthankar said.

Fiction becoming Reality

Fiction is becoming a reality every day, he said, adding that HDFC Bank made ATMs 40 per cent more efficient a decade back by saving a customer’s favourite transaction. When they were introducedit was a land grab for ATM locations but today,they are taken for granted. Banking tomorrow will have robotic helpers becoming mainstream and though other channels will proliferate, branches will co-exist, Sukhthankar observed.

For banks to remain in the customer minds, building trust was imperative according to Sukhthankar.

“It is important to strengthen those elements that define trust, he said, adding that each bank needed to focus on these attributes. Banks are more about what customers tell each other that the bank stands for, he observed.

The way forward

Going ahead, players who change the playing field will win, he felt. This meant innovation alone could facilitate sustainable leadership via experience differentiation, Sukhthankar said. However, getting there will need imagination as the best way to predict the future was to create it, he added.

“One advantage that the banks have built is a large customer base and they can use technology to make sense of the data and provide better solutions to the customer,”Sukhthankar concluded.