Interoperability is no more an issue

Mobile banking would be a big boon in rural areas. But, will it be easy to
penetrate in the rural areas?

Today, only 34.1% of urban poor and 26.8% of rural poor with the monthly
income of less than Rs 50,000 have a bank account, while almost 50% of the
population own mobile phones. So, it makes business sense to link up the mobile
phones with the financial services which otherwise remain a distant dream for
the poor. Yes, no doubt that distribution would be a big challenge in the rural
areas. But, any day telecom services have better penetration than any of the
banks. Nokia has as many as 2,00,000 sales point in the country, while banks
have presence at 70,000 locations. KYC is another obstacle as of now. But, in
the future the problem would be solved by the UID (unique identity number).

What are the services Obopay is offering to its consumers? When is it
expected to be commercially launched?

Right now, we are offering two kinds of easy pay solutions to our thousands
of customers in Pune. 'Easy Pay' is one service which is a limited KYC (know
your customer) product. By using this, a customer can pay utility bills and
recharge/top-up phones. The other one is a 'Easy Send' service which can be used
to transfer money from person to person (P2P). After RBI relaxing the norms, a
person can now send money upto Rs 50,000. Both the services have the ability to
initiate m-payments through SMS, IVR, WAP, JAVA and FIRE. We have just started
the pilot project in the month of February. If everything goes as per the
schedule, we will launch the services by the end of 2010.

A number of m-banking and payment solutions are available in India today.
Still there is no interoperability between them. How is it affecting the
ecosystem?

Interoperability is no more a issue. It is very much possible today.
National Payment Corporation of India is running a pilot project for the
interoperability of m-banking and payment solutions. We could soon see some
guidelines from RBI in the near future. It will be good for the eco-system and
add more value to the existing solutions.

Please tell us about the role of Nokia, Obopay and YES BANK in the
m-banking pilot project that you are doing in Pune?

All the three parties have a equal and important role to play. Obopay is
using Nokia's distribution network for the pilot project and will continue to
use it after the commercial launch too. A customer coming to Nokia outlets is
offered to use the services. The m-banking application is pre-loaded on the
Nokia handsets and if a customer wants then it can be uploaded on any other
handset as well. YES BANK has received regulatory approvals from the RBI to act
as the issuing bank and custodian of funds under these services. Last but not
the least, Obopay runs the entire service.

Akhilesh Shukla

akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in