Mobile payment services, has been launched for the first time in India which will allow seamless and real-time fund transfer from one person’s bank account to another.
Launching the Interbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS), which currently has seven banks including the largest lender SBI on board, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor, Shyamala Gopinath, stated that it has the potential to change the retail payment landscape in India which boasts of 600 million mobile subscribers and 300 million bank accounts.
National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which has been promoted by 10 banks, will act as the settlement agency between banks and deliver the back-end support for the system to be operational.
According to NPCI’s Chief Executive, A P Hota, this is the first-of-a-kind system in the country and the real power would be when it starts delivering in the rural areas.
A bank account holder will have to get his mobile money ID (MMID) from the bank which will be his ID for mobile-commerce transactions.
The bank installs a special application on his mobile phone from where the remitting will be done. Once the process is complete, the bank account holder can remit money to anyone, provided he has the receiver’s MMID and mobile phone number. In case of a lower-end phone where the application cannot be installed, money can also be transferred through SMS.