Soon you will be able to pay your insurance premium, buy railway platform ticket or pay school fees using your mobile. The National Payments Corporation of India has got approval from the RBI to extend mobile payment to merchant transactions. The process will become operational within the next three months, said Mr A. P. Hota, Managing Director and CEO, NPCI. NPCI is working on a pilot project with six banks, which include ICICI Bank, Union Bank of India, State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank. To facilitate merchant payment through mobile, banks will have to install the necessary software at their end and integrate the merchants they have acquired. NPCI will facilitate the entire process.
Limits for transfer
The limits for transfer will be the same as that for person to person mobile transfer — Rs 50,000 if it is application based and Rs 5,000 if it is SMS based. The fees charged by NPCI will be 10 paise, same as in individual mobile payment. “Once operational, it will be very convenient for customers to make their payments. For instance, if you can buy the platform ticket before you reach the railway station, you will save a lot of time. The ticket can be downloaded on your mobile.” Mr Hota said. About mobile payment for individuals, Mr Hota said that 21 banks are currently offering it and nine more are in the testing stage. However, he added that the volumes are yet to pick up because banks are not publicising the service. “The technology is still new. It will take time for it to become a mass technology,” he said. The RBI has given NPCI permission for channel integration of Interbank Mobile Payment Service. This facility, when operational, will allow customers to send money from ATM or the Internet to another person's mobile by giving mobile money identification number, Mr Hota said. Currently, customers can transfer only from mobile to mobile.
Rupay ATM card
Recently, NPCI had launched the Rupay ATM card for the Benaras Kashi Gomti Gramin Bank, an RRB (regional rural bank). It is also in talks with 11-12 RRBs and co-operative banks to launch Rupay ATM cards, Mr Hota said. “We are not yet ready for commercial banks to launch Rupay cards because, as of now, the cards are only enabled for ATM use and not POS use. Once they become enabled for POS use, we can also tie up with commercial banks to launch ATM cum debit cards. For now, these are only ATM cards and, hence, are useful for customers of RRBs and co-operative banks,” he said. NPCI is hopeful that it would be able to offer ATM-cum-debit Rupay cards by March 2012, he added. - www.thehindubusinessline.com
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