HDFC Bank unveils banking application for Apple Watch

HDFC Bank, the country’s second largest private sector bank, unveiled its banking application for Apple Watch that allows its customers to view their account summaries, block cards and recharge their mobile phones and DTH connections.

The Apple Watch app will work when paired via Bluetooth with its mobile application on iPhone 5 and above versions. HDFC Bank said that it is developing a wearables application for the Android operating system by this year.

Customers will be allowed about 10 kinds of transactions including account information on savings, current, fixed deposits, demat accounts, mutual funds and credit cards, mobile and DTH recharge, request account statements and cheque books, locate the closest ATM and bank branch, view messages from the bank and discount offers and hotlist lost debit cards, said Nitin Chugh, Senior Executive Vice President and Head - Digital Banking, HDFC Bank.

The bank plans to allow payment of bills through active notifications, offers based on location and payment of pre-added bills soon.

Currently, HDFC Bank provides over 150 banking transactions through its net banking platform and about 80 transactions through mobile banking.

The private bank said that the Apple Watch application is merely a projection of the mobile banking app and works in conjunction with it. Customers will have to create a customised Watch banking PIN on the mobile app to access the account on the Apple Watch.

As a security feature, the user’s session logs out automatically after inactivity of about 5 minutes.

Rival ICICI Bank earlier in April announced its application for wearables. Called iWear, ICICI Bank’s wearables app is available for Android, Apple and Tizen devices.

The application is live on the Apple Store and can be downloaded by anyone who has an Apple Watch, which will be soon launched in India.


Source : Thehindubusinessline