RBI guidelines fuel M-Commerce

Mobile banking has picked up in India after the RBI issued operating guidelines for mobile banking in India in September 2008. The fact came into light in an industry research on M-commerce, to determine consumer perception, usage pattern, share of wallet etc. The research was conducted jointly by AC Nielsen and PayMate, market leader in M-commerce. India has currently around 5 mn M-Commerce users.

According to the study, RBI guidelines have proved to be an enabler for people accepting mobile payments as around 57 per cent of the people surveyed have registered for the same in the last five months. The RBI guidelines were issued on September 29, last year. As many as 1,320 people were surveyed for the research in five cities --- Delhi, Mumbai, Banalogre, Pune and Hyderabad.

Bangalore shows highest value spent on M-commerce followed by Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad. Intention of using M-commerce in future is significantly higher at 60 per cent in Bangalore as compared to 35 per cent in Mumbai and 52 per cent in Pune.

Around 52 per cent of the users utilize the service in order to pay off their utility bills especially mobile bills followed by purchasing movie tickets and making monthly payments. Among all the various different modes of making payments 17 per cent of the consumers use ECS, 16 per cent make cash payment at cash counter, 7 per cent pay cash at the ATM counter,17 per cent use drop boxes to deposit cheques and around a majority 45 per cent users use M Commerce as a regular mode of making payments. A large portion also claims that it is the predominant form of payment that they use.

The service is almost used by men, women seems to have given a thumps down to m-commerce. The study says that 96 per cent of the users are male and 78 per cent belong to the age group 21-30 year which clearly states that M-commerce is for the youth.

However, the new RBI guidelines still have some bottlenecks. The per transaction (Rs 2,500) and daily (Rs 5,000) limits effectively narrow the scope of mobile payments to small ticket purchase only. Services such as bill payments, airline ticketing and online shopping would not be possible. In India PayMate, Oxycash, MChek and ITZCash are the know name in M-commerce.

akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in