Google is adding to its growing arsenal of mobile applications and services–according to a patent originally filed in February 2006 and made public last week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the search giant is planning a mobile payment service. The so-called “GPay” service would enable consumers to authenticate payments, debit purchaser accounts and credit seller accounts via text message. Described in the patent application as “a computer-implemented method of effectuating an electronic on-line payment,” GPay appears roughly similar in concept and scope to existing mobile payment platforms–a year ago, Google launched an online payment system, Google Checkout, and in May released a mobile iteration of the service, which is presently limited to online transactions.

Source: Information Week

Telecom company Reliance Communications and private financial institution ICICI Bank are close to offering money transfer services over mobile phones. The
The two companies have completed trial runs in metroes and leading circles across the country, according to sources close to the development.

The new service will enable ICICI Bank customers to transfer funds to other account holders registered with the financial institutions website.

A customer of the bank can transfer up to Rs 5,000 per transaction, using Reliance Communications’ pre- and post-paid services. The service will allow multiple transfers, enabling subscribers to transfer higher amounts to other accounts of ICICI Bank.

At present, ICICI Bank has over 24 million customers and Reliance Communications has around 37 million subscribers. The Anil Ambani group company’s m-commerce services include bill payments, railway and airline ticketing, shopping, auctions, movie and event ticketing among others.

Source: Business Standard 

As per a survey by Sybase 365, among Indian respondents:

- 49 percent used their mobile to check their bank balance in the last three months
- 81 percent were aware of mobile banking services on offer
- 36 percent would switch to a bank that offers fr*ee mobile banking services
- 27 percent of respondents would willingly pay for account balance enquiries, 5 percent for information.
- 67 percent would pay for fraud transaction reports and 41 percent for freezing their card

The survey was conducted among 11,818 mobile phone subscribers in Australia, China, India, Singapore and Taiwan. It was conducted through online questionnaires in May.

Source: Agencyfaqs!

NSDL has launched SMS Alert facility on a pilot basis for demat account holders from August 10 whereby a few investors will be able to receive alerts for transfers to their demat accounts. Under this facility, investors will be able to receive alerts for the debits (transfers) that have taken place in their demat accounts, a day after the debit (transfer). The full-fledged roll out of this facility will be on September 1. No charge will be levied by NSDL on DPs for providing this facility to investors.

Source: Economic Times

ING Vysya Life Insurance has introduced a mobile payment facility called PayMate, which enables policyholders to pay their premium through an SMS for no additional cost. The service is now available only to Citibank and Corporation Bank customers. The payment is done in two simple steps - a customer sends an SMS with the policy number prefaced by the abbreviation ‘IVL’ to 667711. After receiving a reply confirming the premium amount due, he/she has to send the PayMate PIN and will receive a payment confirmation reply within a few seconds.

Source: The Telegraph

Juniper Research predicts that P2P fund transfers and mobile payments in the developing world, together with the commercialization in 2009 of NFC (Near Field Communications) based mobile payments will generate transactions worth approximately $22bn by 2011.

The report also indicates that SMS based Person2Person (P2P) fund transfers and payments will drive the developing world m-payment market.

Juniper Research illustrates the current and near-future status of mobile payments with interviews, case studies and analysis from representatives of some of the leading organisations in the growing mobile payment industry.

White papers and further details of the study ‘Mobile Payment Strategies & Markets 2007-2011′ can be freely downloaded from juniperresearch.com

Source: Textually.org

You could soon pay for a cup of coffee or dinner at your favourite restaurant using your mobile phone. Not just that, you could also send money to a needy relative via your phone. The unprecedented growth in the number of mobile phone users has enabled banks to transform mobile phones into an alternate channel for payments. Till now, most transactions on the mobile would only give customers information on their bank accounts.

All major banks in India are now entering into tie-ups with companies, facilitating payments through the mobile phone. SBI and ICICI Bank have already undertaken pilot projects on mobile banking, in association with Airtel and payments-company mChek.

Multinationals like Standard Chartered and HSBC are also evaluating their mobile-commerce options.Citibank already has a service partnership with Paymate, another mobile-payments provider.

To start with, each bank will use its own payment-gateway, which should eventually come down to 2-3 gateways M-payments operate on a very simple mechanism globally. The details of the credit or debit card are stored in the user’s phone, transactions are done via SMS.

So when a user wants to pay using his mobile phone, all he needs to do is share his mobile number with the merchant. Instantly, he receives an SMS (with the merchant’s name and amount) asking him to authorise the payment.

The customer can do this by confirming the alphanumeric code sent to him, as well as the amount. Within a few seconds, the bank concerned will authenticate the details and debit the amount. But obviously, the merchant will also have to be part of the system.

Considering that less than half of the mobile phone users have high-end handsets, companies are trying to encrypt card details onto SIM cards, to target people using even the entry-level handsets. Those with sophisticated handsets can download software to facilitate the process.

However, there are concerns, as all transactions use SMS, which at times is quite unreliable. There is the security aspect as well, with the SMS pipe being largely unprotected.

At present, the only services to go live are payments of mobile phone bills, and some tie-ups with internet-trading portals.

Source: The Economic Times

After becoming your digital camera, diary and Internet browser of choice, mobile phones could soon take the place of your cash and credit cards too. In fact, the ubiquitous mobile phone could make the wallets obsolete in a few years just as your wrist watch has been reduced to being a mere fashion statement.

Nokia, the world’s biggest handset maker, and a number of telecom service providers have thrashed out a global initiative to turn mobile phones into wallets. A number of large Asian and European carriers such as KPN, Maxis Communications, Mobilkom Austria, O2, Orange, SFR, SingTel, SKT, and Wind are part of the 14-member body that had initiated the project several months ago.

Nokia, along with rival phone makers Samsung and LG Electronics of Korea have said they will embed a wireless chip into their phones soon.

The world’s biggest payment card company, MasterCard, is also involved in the initiative, which is cheaper and much faster than other wireless payment experiments, like those using SMS messages. China Mobile, Vodafone, Cingular – all owned by AT&T and BellSouth — and Telefonica already support the common wireless chip format on the mobile phones they distribute for their networks

Source: The Times of India

There are 38.5 million internet users in India and the number is set to grow to 100 million in the next two years. An estimated 4.6 million people bank online and the number are expected to grow to 16 million by the end of the current fiscal (2007-08). Banking online may be either via personal computers or mobile phones, that is mobile banking.

According to an Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) survey, of the 6,365 respondents 2,227 or 35 percent use online banking. Of these of online bankers, 28.7 percent are from Maharashtra, 17.75 percent from Delhi and 10.3 percent from Tamil Nadu.

Source: The Economic Times

GSM-based cellular operators’ initiative to launch mobile money transfer services in the country seems to have hit a minor bump, with the industry fearing that the Government may start counting the money transferred through mobile networks for the purpose of calculating annual licence fee.

The service, announced in Barcelona during the 3GSM World Congress, will allow subscribers to transfer money from anywhere in the world by sending an SMS from their handsets.

The service is particularly relevant for India, not only because it is the largest recipient of international remittances worldwide ($22 billion in 2005) but also because it will be equally useful for funds transfer within the country.

Source: Hindu Business Line