In March 2008, Barclays in India (Barclays), the Indian arm of Barclays Plc, the major

global financial services provider based in the UK, launched a unique mobile banking
initiative in the country called 'Hello Money'.1 With this, Barclays hoped to expand its
customer base in India despite the restrictions on foreign banks on opening multiple
branches. "Since there are constraints and regulatory hurdles in branch expansion, we
intend to use the mobile banking channel coupled with business correspondent model to
enhance our retail operations in India,"2

said Samir Bhatia (Bhatia), Managing Director, India and Indian Ocean, Barclays Global
Retail and Commercial Banking (GRCB).

Barclays had been present in India since the 1970s through its Investment bank Barclays
Capital. However, it entered the Indian corporate banking and retail banking space much
later. Its corporate banking arm was launched in October 2006 and its consumer and
commercial banking arm in May 2007.3

Though a relatively late entrant into the retail banking space in India, Barclays had
developed a customer base of 600,000 by March 2008. Of this, 500,000 were credit card
customers, according to the bank's Retail Banking Director, Suresh Gurumani.4

The bank had just five branches in India as of March 2008. But it was viewing the fast
growing Indian market as a big growth opportunity.

In fact, Ahmed Khizer Khan (Khan), CEO, emerging markets, Barclays GRCB, said that
the bank had entered India with a long-term strategy and described India as 'a jewel in the
bank's emerging markets business'.5 Hence, the bank had applied to the Reserve Bank of
India6 (RBI) for licenses to open more branches in the country.

However, industry experts felt that foreign banks in India were handicapped by the fact
that there was a limit on their expansion as the sector had not been opened up fully. They
did not expect this situation to change at least for another year.7

This being the case, Barclays worked around the RBI regulations to expand its customer
base by launching a user-friendly mobile banking initiative in India.

'Hello Money' provided Barclay's customers with the convenience of carrying out
banking transactions such as fund transfers, bill payments, requests for doorstep banking,
and other banking services, in addition to making account enquiries, through their mobile
phones.