ICICI Bank sets the tone for voice-based payments in India
India’s first voice-based international remittance service
ICICI Bank has unveiled India’s first voice-based international remittance service to enable non-resident Indians (NRIs) to send money to any bank in the country.
With the new feature in its Money2India (M2I) app, an NRI customer can make a remittance to existing payees in India with a voice command to Apple’s virtual voice assistant, Siri. ICICI says it replaces a five-step process.
Vijay Chandok, executive director, ICICI Bank, says its “philosophy is ‘Ready for you. Ready for tomorrow’” and the integration of the app with Siri is “an outcome of this vision”.
Like many others, the bank cites the growing prominence of mobile devices in everyday life, and says its customers can “transfer money seamlessly, while using their mobile phone, rather than engaging with a separate banking platform”.
All transactions take place on the servers of ICICI Bank within the M2I app itself and “no confidential or financial information is shared”.
Pilots and partnerships
Elsewhere, the bank was one of several organisations that welcomed six graduating start-ups from Startupbootcamp FinTech Mumbai for pilots.
ICICI Bank also announced a partnership with Twitter to integrate a set of digital customer support features for the bank’s customers.
