Is India moving from cash to plastic money?
I don’t think so. Plastic money is not very visible, contrary to the popular perception. We’ve only three million credit cards now, but that is because of our culture that does not encourage borrowing. The plastic money business has a lot of rough edges. Defaults and excess charges are a major worry. Good marketing, customer education and so forth are required. The banks need to identify credit card customers properly and do the back-office work well. Credit bureaux have to be established to house wide-rainging data on customers and business opportunities. In fact, for the last one year, the IBA is working on the concept of credit bureau. We have consulted the Reserve Bank of India and are in the process of setting up a group. Once done, the group will usher in consumer banking in a big way. Talking of customer satisfaction, why is there this perception that customers of foreign banks and private sector banks are better served than others? There is a difference. Customer satisfaction i
