Airtel becomes India’s first telco to launch Mobile Banking services
Sometime back RBI had announced that every single village in India will be banking enabled by 2015 and with reference to the same Airtel not only announced two million more subscribers for the month of August, but also announced that it is the first ever network to get the green signal for mobile banking services from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
More significantly, the network announced that the RBI has awarded it a license for a semi closed wallet service over mobile phones. The mobile wallet helps subscribers to load money into an account hosted by Bharti Airtel. That money can then be used to pay for goods either over mobile channels, or using the phone like a pre-loaded debit card. Bharti hasn’t launched any such services yet, but claims it is assessing its options.
What makes it important is that the RBI, which is the central bank of India and holds the leads on monetary policy, has stated that every Indian must have access to mobile banking services by 2015.
Deputy Governer of the RBI, K C Chakrabarty has announced that mobile banks will be available to every Indian village by that time. However, in this case mobile actually does mean mobile the RBI will be sending banks-on-wheels around to each village in turn. The vehicles will offer basic services like deposits and withdrawals.
With a new license granted to Bharti for mobile device based finances, this will prove that mobile phones are more effective than mobile banks for rural India.
MediaPlazza selects Bango for WAP billing
Solution for 60,000 affiliates to go D2C
Bango today announced a deal with MediaPlazza, the world leader in mobile entertainment affiliate programs, which sees Bango browse and buy technology being integrated into their white label solution. This enables any of MediaPlazza’s 60,000 affiliates to sell mobile content from their own mobile content shop on the mobile internet and deliver a superior consumer experience.
The mobile internet enables brands to have their own mobile content shop where users browse and buy in one seamless flow, without the need to exit the shop to send a Premium SMS message to buy content. MediaPlazza hosts a catalogue of over 100,000 items including ringtones, images, games and videos. It also provides expertise and technical support so brands can white label the MediaPlazza platform to strengthen their brand on mobile and build a revenue stream.
We chose Bango because it is the only company with world-wide WAP billing coverage and with so many relationships with mobile operators that enable us to make a charge directly to the consumer’s phone bill,??? said Fr©d©ric Avril, Marketing Manager at MediaPlazza. Bango moves us beyond using Premium SMS as the main payment method to providing WAP billing with the benefits of its user friendly payment experience.???
With affiliates in over 60 countries, it is important to MediaPlazza that users have a convenient and simple payment method available to them,??? said Ray Anderson, CEO of Bango. If ‘pay on bill’ is not available then our BillRank technology finds the next best fit so people can pay for content using their credit or debit card or from their PayPal account. Our aim is to make it easy for brands to collect payment for mobile content, wherever the users are.???
Businesses of all sizes are seizing the opportunity to engage directly with their consumers on the mobile internet. These include global brands such as News Corporation, Manchester United Football Club, Discovery Mobile and MTV, together with smaller, niche content providers.
