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bharti airtel today announced the launch of 'airtel money'—India’s first mobile wallet service by a telecom operator. With this facility you can now buy tickets for the evening movie show without visiting the theater, pay your electricity bill without waiting in a long queue, buy yourself a coffee without the need to take out change or you could pay for groceries after forgetting your wallet at home.
The service will enable airtel mobile customers to use the power of the ubiquitous mobile platform to make payments the easier way—anytime, sitting anywhere.
It is presently available in Gurgaon only. This is the first time a mobile operator has launched such a similar service in India. airtel has already inked tie-ups with several merchants in Gurgaon including coffee shops, restaurants etc, to accept payments. The service will gradually be scaled to over 3,000 merchants in the city.
This has come right at a time when lot of subscribers are being offered to change their operator with a click of a button with MNP. airtel very strategically launched this service to attract more and more subscriber base to their services since mobile commerce is the most apt and hot area to tap in India.
In 2010, bharti airtel was granted the license to use the Semi Closed Wallet by the Reserve Bank of India. The company has designed a secure and robust back-end system to offer India’s first mobile wallet service by a telecom operator—a/irtel money/—as a safe, convenient and user friendly medium for customers to make payments.
airtel had recently announced a JV with State Bank of India to provide banking and financial services to millions of unbanked Indians using the mobile platform. With this launch of a/irtel money/—airtel now offers a complete suite of financial products on mobile devices for the banked as well as unbanked population of the country.
This gives enough reasons for other telcos to jump in this pool and attract more market and mobile banking will boost this year.
airtel money will be subsequently be launched in Delhi NCR and several other key cities in India in a phased manner.
akankshas@cybermedia.co.in