A Study on Channel Preferences among Urban and Rural Banking Customers

Background/Objectives: The expansion of banking channels from branch to off-site formats have ushered in changes in the banking habits of customers across geographies. The expansion of the channels by banks were mainly intended as experience enhancement tools in addition to migrating the customers and reduce the operational costs through brick and mortar format. But whether the improvements in the channel paradigm have reached the urban, semi urban and rural banking customer is a big question and the study is intended to bring out the channel usage matrix of customers across banks and across geographies and the impact of these channels on the last mile customers having accounts across banks. Methods/Analysis: The study analyzed the awareness and usage pattern of ATM, Internet and Mobile Banking among 200 bank customers through a structured questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS. The gap between the awareness and usage level was found out. In addition to that, correlation and regression analysis were also carried out. Findings: The results of the study confirmed that whether the channel offerings by banks are really reaching customers across rural, semi urban and urban bank customers and translate into usage more than the awareness. Applications/Improvements: The implications for banks will be two fold. It will help banks to know the awareness level of their digital channels among their customers. It will also enable them to undertake research on the usage level of their channels across customer segments and retune their strategies for maximum penetration as well as usage.