ICICI Bank launches " mera i Mobile" mobile app for rural customers

Hyderabad: ICICI Bank launched a mobile banking app for rural customers that allow them to access banking services as well as information on agri services. Anyone including non-ICICI Bank customers can also download and use the app which is available in eleven Indian languages.

Christened, ‘Mera iMobile’, it allows users in rural areas to avail as many as 135 services on their mobile phone, helping them to save the time and cost of visiting a branch to avail these services. The list of services include kisan credit card, gold loan, farm equipment loan and loans to self-help groups (SHGs). The app also enables them to undertake an array of frequently used banking services from their smartphone, without using mobile internet services.

The app will offer agriculture related information like crop-wise mandi prices of nearly 230 crop varieties across 460 mandis. It also displays taluka-wise weather update for close to 3,700 talukas across and over 300 districts, aiding farmers to plan their sowing and harvesting activities conveniently and in an informed manner. ‘Mera iMobile’ provides these value added services in one single app for the rural customer.

Chanda Kochhar, MD & CEO, ICICI Bank said, “At ICICI Bank, we believe in investing in innovative technology much ahead of its time. In line with this philosophy, ICICI Bank has pioneered many innovative solutions for its customers like



internet, mobile, Tab and ‘Touch Banking’ branches among others. Today, India has the second largest – internet user base and smartphone market globally. We envisage that the next wave of growth in internet usage will come from rural India due to growth in cheaper smartphone handsets, spread of wireless networks and evolving consumer behavior.

‘Mera iMobile’ has been specially created to be ‘light’ to enable customers in rural and semi-urban markets to download and run it easily even with low internet speed. To further aid quick download of the app, the Bank will introduce ‘WiFi enabled posters’ at its rural and semi-urban branches. To begin with, these posters will be deployed across 700 of the Bank’s branches. The Bank also plans to mount these posters on vans and cycles to enable download of the app at places with high footfalls like haats and common areas in villages.

The key services of ‘Mera iMobile’ are integrated offering of rural banking accounts in the app, value-added services of agri-information, availability of services without using mobile internet services and offers the app in multiple languages.

The app is available in eleven Indian languages and English. The languages include Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Odia, Assamese and Punjabi. It is also the first banking app to offer UPI services in multiple Indian languages.