mBanking Revisited

Mobile Banking, a facility being provided by many banks in India, is not entirely a new concept. But the scope of this service is now expanding. It is now not just restricted to checking your balance or mini-statements on your mobile screen.

The great penetration of this medium in India has the potential to effectively tap the unbanked people. As mobile-based applications expand from GPRS based services to Bluetooth enabled ones, these are not feasible for banking purposes - most of these people in question are not equipped with technology-enabled (read:expensive) handsets. Banks need to, therefore, focus on technology restricted to the ones available on plain-vanilla handsets, viz. SMS.

Going a step further, some companies introduced Mobile Payments in India. However, these were only linked with a Credit or Debit Card. The role of the phone was only restricted to acting as a second factor of Authentication, i.e. only to improve security while paying by cards.

But now it is possible to remit money via your mobile, with the launch of mobile version of VISA Money Transfer. Several such peer-to-peer (P2P) remittance services have successfully entered in some of the foreign markets.

RBI is working on a guideline for enabling the service for banks in India. Once banks get the green signal, it is set to change the face of the Banking Industry.