Wednesday, May 5, 2010

YES Bank got green signal from RBI to offer mobile money service in India

In India soon you will be able to pay for your purchases using your mobile phone. This facility is available in western countries. In Pune the project was launched on a trial basis and is doing “extremely well”, thus Nokia is expecting money transfer using mobile phone is going to grow gradually. During the ‘strategy sharing session' Nokia described its vision for mobile money services launched in India, as a business with enormous revenue potential.

Yes Bank has got green signal from the Reserve Bank of India to offer mobile money services in association with Nokia. (Obopay, a California-based company, in which Nokia has a stake, offers the technology back-up for YES Bank.) The trial project in Pune will be ending in couple of months and its result will most probably provide inputs for RBI which will help it in regulating the launch of the services in India.

However Nokia is ready for roll out of services. The process would be, you go to any of the two lakh Nokia's retail outlets across the country and fill a form which acknowledges that you are an account holder with YES Bank. Nokia promises that the process will not take more than 15 minutes.

Then you can deposit the amount at the Nokia outlet and within minutes the ‘credit' will appear on your mobile phone. You are ready to make payments at shops, pay electricity and water bills and even transfer funds to another person.

At present only YES Bank has got the approval later on other banks can follow the suit. Nokia is having talks with few other banks, but it will depend on the banks that they apply for approval with the RBI, Nokia refused to disclose the names of the banks or give a timeline for the launch of the service. Obopay charges two per cent of the value of payments as commission, except for utility bills, where the payment would be between Rs 5 and Rs 10 a transaction.

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