New Delhi, Aug 17 (KNN) MSMEs and shopkeepers are still using cash and cheque for majority of their transactions, despite almost all of them having access to the internet, according to a report.

A FICCI-IBA-BCG report tilted, ‘Digital and Beyond: New Horizons in Indian Banking’, said, “There is strong business case for engaging them on different channels, in addition to branches, as the current account balances of MSMEs can increase by as much as 10 times if activation of alternative channels is higher.”

Awareness remains a key concern. Fifty per cent of MSMEs do not recall Regional Managers explaining their bank's digital offering to them, it added.

In the retail segment, a mere 23% of the people with internet access do digital banking, the report said. "Getting customers on-board digital platforms needs to be prioritised; banks should be open to incentivising potential customers and seek to bring them on-board at the time of account opening itself," said the report.

"Making payments easier by intelligent authenticity verification for recurring transactions and leveraging technology to develop wealth management solutions for the mass market are some of the solutions offer by the report."

The survey report reveals that corporates are well aware of banks’ digital offerings and are willing to adopt them, but it needs persistence from their relationship managers. A threefold increase in corporate banking activities on mobile devices over the next five years is projected by some 475 respondents. In terms of corporate banking business, the survey notes that banks with high advocacy had 15% more share of wallet than those with low advocacy.