Online imperatives
It is madness. Internet banking mania seems to have gripped almost all banks in India. Not a single day passes off without some bank or other announcing its Net banking initiative. However, it seems that this Net banking concept has not been understood in its entirety.

Editorial --Think long
Online banking might be just evolving. Is online banking just another channel to reach out to customers? Is it just a strategy to generate volumes? Is it a tool for cost-reduction? Banks need to answer all these questions before plunging into e-banking. That should help them chisel out a suitable e-banking strategy.

New initiatives in Net banking
What is Internet banking? Different banks seem to have different perspectives. Here is how a frontrunner like ICICI Bank looks at it. Says H N Sinor, managing director and CEO of ICICI Bank: "Internet banking is one more channel, one more access point like an automated teller machine or a call centre from where a customer can transact business for which earlier he used to go to a bank branch. Internet banking is the cheapest of all banking channels and helps banks gain substantially in terms of transaction costs."

Technological priorities
Slowly, but surely, technology issues are moving centre-stage in online banking. Internet banking is after all banking served up with a technology dressing. It is more about caixa than compute chips.

Understanding the challenges
It was a question pregnant with serious implications for banks going online. The Wall Street Journal screamed in its front-page story in its 24 September, 1998 edition: "With 20 million of us buying products and services online, could tommorow's generation of consumers view Internet banking as a commodity "Better than Beer?" The Journal went on to quote Student Monitor, a market research organisation: "More students say that Internet is "in" their campuses."

How banks use the Internet worldwide
One of the models is where a bank uses the Internet as a shop window. Here, banks use the Internet to disseminate information about themselves and their products. There are banks elsewhere which use the Internet to offer interactive financial advice.

Unravelling the intricacies of online banking initiatives
Online banking seems to have acquired the status of a mantra. More and more banks are swearing by it. In a bid to understand online banking and its complexities, Financial Express organised a symposium on the subject on 21 June, 2000. The symposium was moderated by Associate Editor A H Ghani.

"Departmental stores and portals might become banks"
ICICI Bank is working out new initiatives in online banking. In an interview with Neeraj Jha of FE-Thinktank, the bank's managing director and CEO H N Sinor talks at length about the bank's online banking strategy.

"B2B opportunities are huge"
HDFC Bank is another bank that has put in place a strong Net banking model. In an interview with Neeraj Jha of FE-Thinktank, HDFC Bank's managing director Aditya Puri shares his perspective on online banking.