Virtual banking and online business

Banks play a crucial role in promoting online businesses. Even though e-shoppers have the option of cash-on-delivery, which seems to be secure and trustworthy, still there is an urge for the e-payment schemes, which can only be provided through banks. Banks act as strong and trustworthy intermediaries in the online transactions and they provide a bold opening in the online business. At present, banks have e-payment systems like Internet banking, electronic fund transfers (NEFT/RTGS), plastic money (credit card & debit card) and mobile banking. These systems provide payment to online transactions like online purchases of products, mobile recharges, hotel booking, ticket booking, etc. by considering all types of security meas-ures. For the real working of these e-services, the need of apt infrastructures is an inevitable feature. This paper examines the efficient utilization of mobile banking by the bank customers who have all the infrastructures for availing the same. The results showed that the majority of the sample customers selected for the study owned a mobile but only few of them use a mobile as their mode of access to banks. They also revealed that the people were comparatively well aware of mobile banking, but its usage level was very low. The mostly used e-settlement with mobile banking was for mobile top-up by urban area customers and rural area customers and there was no significant difference between the urban area and rural area customers regarding the utilization of mobile banking.


Introduction
Banks play a crucial role in promoting online businesses. Even though e-shoppers have the option of cash-on-delivery, which seems to be secure and trustworthy, still there is an urge for the e-payment schemes, which can only be provided through banks. Banks act as strong and trustworthy intermediaries in the online transactions and they provide a bold opening in the online business. At present, banks have epayment systems like Internet banking, electronic fund transfers (NEFT/RTGS), plastic money (credit card & debit card) and mobile banking. These systems provides payment to online transactions like online purchases of products, mobile recharges, hotel booking, ticket booking, etc. by considering all types of security measures. For the real working of these e-services, the need of apt infrastructures is an inevitable feature. With the significant and growing penetration of mobile phones, linked to the potential public call office system, and the low cost of mobile telephony in India, one can only hope that M-banking will be allowed to play a significant role in the push for financial inclusion.
1. Theoretical framework 1.1. Virtual banking. Virtual banking also known as online banking is the service provided as like in a bank, but the only difference is that the services are This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license, which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. provided via Internet. This particular service does not need a brick and motor system. The services like account opening, fund transfer, payment services, eshopping and so on all are being served online. The bank customers having computer and Internet literacy will find it more convenient and accessible. This virtual system has the power to change the system of economies, which were more run by physical cash in contrast to cash less economy. In India particularly, the recent reformations; like demonetization, converting every transactions to online, zero balance account all are with a view to change the economy into a cash less one, which is only possible through virtual banking system.

Mobile banking.
Mobile banking also popularly known as M-Banking is a delivery channel, which opened up after the tremendous success of mobile telephony. Banks started offering M-banking during the late nineties and with the introduction of 3G mobile phones in early 2000, acceptance of M-banking showed good growth rates. M-banking customers could conduct banking transactions using Short Messaging Services (SMS) or mobile Internet. Instruction for a banking operation is sent as SMS to a predefined number given by the bank (Sudeep, 2011).
In the year 2012, Vinayagamoorthy and Sankar have studied about mobile banking and they highlighted the use of mobile banking for transactions like fund transfer, balance check, mini statement, checking of account history, SMS alerts, access to card statement, balance check, mobile recharge, etc. via mobile phones.
The provision of real-time updates of critical banking transactions is the main benefit of M-bankingfor example, soon after a transaction like ATM cash withdrawal customer gets a mobile alert about it through M-banking. In spite of having good potential to become a medium for electronic payments and mobile cash, M-Banking has not been well accepted by the customers worldwide (Sudeep, 2011).

1.3.
Inter-bank mobile payment system. The IMPS, on the other hand, is a service operated by NPCI which provides an instant, 24X7, interbank electronic fund transfer service through mobile phones. Publicly launched on November 22, 2010, this system facilitates customers registered with their banks for this service to use mobile instruments as a channel for interbank fund transfers in a secured manner with immediate confirmation features. This service is in consonance with the Mobile Payment Guidelines 2008 issued by RBI, which stress on interoperability both across banks and mobile operators in a safe and secured manner. Currently, 27 member banks participate in this scheme (Khan, 2011).

Present mobile banking statistics.
The top private banks in India expect mobile devices to be the predominant channel through which customers access their accounts. Kotak Mahindra Bank has already seen customers logins' through mobile outstripping those through Internet. Transactions in value terms through mobile channel are already at par with Internet transactions for Axis Bank, and HDFC Bank expects mobile to overtake Internet next year (Shetty, 2015). HDFC Bank is the largest in the mobile banking space in terms of value of transactions with Rs 5686 crores of transactions in April 2015 (Table 1). insurance premium).  Business rules.  All current/ savings bank account holders in P segment and current accountholders in SME segment are eligible.  Transaction limit per customer per day is Rs. 50,000/-with a calendar month limit of Rs. 2,50,000/-.
All customers can avail the service irrespective of their telecom service provider.
The service is free of charge. SMS/GPRS cost will be borne by the customer.

Literature survey on virtual banking
Following are the literature reviews on virtual banking like Internet banking, mobile banking ATM/plastic money: Technology has really revolutionized the banking operation across the globe and definitely enhanced the quality of banking services. The study found out that working environment of banking employees of Tamil Nadu and Kerala has positively improved after computerization. The customers are highly satisfied with all hi-tech products (Vanaraj, 2011). Internet security and customers' privacy were found to be the most important future challenges of banks. Perceived usefulness, perceived web security has a strong and direct effect on acceptance of Internet banking (Aladwani, 2001). India is among the fastest growing online markets. E-commerce has shown a very exciting growth trend among travel and retail sites, models like Cash-ondelivery and other consumer centric payment options and improved service quality will boost overall sales. It is definitely the most exciting phase among online retailers and consumers, as this learning curve will put India on the global map as one of the largest e-commerce markets in the coming months (Camscore, 2012). The online banking was a demand of today's customers, because it saved the cost and time for the settlement of their financial transactions. The major problem observed was the lack of knowledge among the people about the use of Internet and computer, which alone was not the major problem in growth of e-banking (Sudesh Kumar et al., 2014). Shopping was the most common service used by Internet banking users and the customers were not in favor of using the Internet-banking for the purpose of linking their account, transferring of funds, recharging pre paid mobile and for the purpose of trading of mutual funds (Seyed Mehdi Pourkiaeia et al., 2014).
Following are the latest literature reviews on mobile banking.
Almost 16.5% of wireless mobile phone subscribers are using the Internet over their mobile phones. According to a mobile banking report by Deloitte (Alpesh Patel, 2013), 17 million Indians are using mobile phones for banking transactions.
In 2012-13, Airtel-Axis Bank launched a mobile banking service for financial inclusion and money transfer. According to operative guidelines for banks by RBI, only those banks which are licensed and supervised in India and have a physical presence in India will be permitted to offer mobile banking services (Chugh, 2014). According to RBI report, there are 82 banks that are permitted by RBI to provide mobile banking services throughout India (Reserve bank of India, 2014), as compared to 21 banks in the year 2010.
Cost as an attribute has been studied by Sadi and Noordin (2011), and they found out that perceived cost is also an important factor and has negative relation with the intention to adopt mobile banking services; they suggested that the creative promotional and pricing strategies, including cost reduction should be implemented to attract more price-conscious customers. Singh, Srivastava, and Srivastav (2010) also argued that the financial cost incurred has a negative effect on the intention to use mobile banking. Researchers have come across many different models that help them in determining the important factors that affect the attitude and intention of the mobile banking users. In the next section, those models have been discussed.
Facilitating condition is also an important attribute of consumer behavioral control towards intention to use, therefore, it is necessary to improve the facilitating conditions of mobile application services like connection speed, secure systems and easy transaction method (Sadi & Noordin, 2011).
Bhatti (2007) used all the three models TAM, TPB and IDT and found out that the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, personal innovativeness and perceived behavioral control are strong determinants of the intention to adopt M-commerce.
According to Nayak, Nath and Goel, to fulfil the expectations of the consumers and to increase the mobile banking users, mobile banking service provider needs to increase the awareness about the mobile banking services. Banks and the mobile service providers need to come together to bring a revolution in the field of mobile banking.
3. Objectives of the study 1. To examine the efficient utilization of mobile banking by the bank customers. 2. To analyze the potentialities of mobile banking in India.

Research design.
The data used for analysis were from primary data. The area of study was confined to Trivandrum district. The bank customers of urban area and rural area were equally taken.

Research instrument.
Questionnaire was used for the purpose of the datacollection as the research instrument. This Questionnaire consisted of closedended questions and opened ended questions including rating scales.

Findings of the study
The customers were asked about the electronic devices that they own, the place at which they access their bank site and through which device they avail the banking services. Table 2 shows the distribution of sample customers by their technological utilization.

Awareness status of mobile banking.
Effort was made to examine the awareness level of the mobile banking services among the sample customers. A three point scale was used, giving a score of three to fully aware, two to partially aware and one to unaware. The figures in the Table 3 shows that the awareness level of customers was above average with 2.52 and 2.48 for urban area and rural area, respectively. The significance value between urban area and rural was below 0.05, which showed a significant difference in opinion about mobile banking awareness. Source: primary data. Table 3 showed a significant difference between the opinion of urban area and rural area customers and also an above average awareness level among them.

Usage status of mobile banking.
The usage level of mobile banking among the bank customers was evaluated using a seven-point scale. The levels were as follows:  once a day with six points;  more than once a day with seven points;  once a week with four points;  more than once a week with five points;  once in a month with two points;  more than once a month with three points;  never used with one point. The score opinion on es, as the customers a icant value is is no signi    The usage of mobile banking in rural area was comparatively lesser than that of Kerala for all the esettlements. This may be caused by the absence of usage of smart phones, which supports mobile banking software among rural area customers.

Potentialities of mobile banking.
The study revealed that the majority (86.38 per cent) of the sample customers selected for the study owned a mobile, but only 23.88 per cent of them use a mobile as their mode of access to banks. This gives an opening to the bank marketing sections on diverting their attention to this opportunity of attracting mobile owners towards mobile banking. Nowadays, the customers availing Internet banking facility use their tablets or smart phones to access their banks but they are not using their devices to access mobile banking applications provided by the bank.
People were comparatively well aware of mobile banking, but its usage level was very low. Regarding the opinion on efficiency of mobile banking by its users reveals an above average score. This indicated that the mobile banking applications provided by banks were accepted by the customers. It rooted the idea of giving more attention to the potentialities of mobile banking.

Conclusion
The fast advancing global information infrastructure (including information technology and computer networks such as the Internet and telecom-munications systems) enable the development of electronic commerce at a global level. The nearly universal connectivity, which the Internet offers, has made it an invaluable business tool. These developments have created a new type of economy, which we may call the 'digital economy'. This fast emerging economy is bringing rapidly changing technologies with it, increasing knowledge intensity in all areas of business, and creating virtual supply chains, new forms of business and service delivery channels such as e-banking. As a direct consequence of the emergence of the 'digital economy', the balance of power seems to be shifting to the customers. The change of economy from a traditional way to the recently demanded form needs a huge technological support and effort, better planning and efficiency in implementation.
The phase of banking business is drastically changing, especially in their transactions that are from conventional to smart. To support the working of online business, all the banks are designing various products. One of the medium through which the customers can be accessible is through mobile. As the device mobile is emerging in its importance in a wide range among the people around the world, it will be better to tap that opportunity and use that as a medium in banking and online business. There is still a huge gap to be filled in by the banks in India to use a mobile as one of the modes to get online access.