In a bid to encourage the utilization of mobiles for banking transactions, the Reserve Bank of India has allowed the National Payments Corporation of India to facilitate money transfer from a bank customer by using an ATM/Internet to some other beneficiary's cellular telephone. The RBI's permission to expand the coverage comes as transfer mechanism across the NPCI-promoted Interbank Mobile Payment Service is very slow to take off
Ever since IMPS was launched in August 2010, the volume of mobile banking transactions nudged up from 430 mobile banking transactions aggregating Rs 5,142 in August 2010 to 12,511 transactions aggregating Rs 3.80 crore in October 2011. The volume of banks that are classified as participants in IMPS has grown from four in August 2010 to twenty-eight in October 2011.
“The IMPS has to date facilitated instant inter-bank funds transfer involving the sender as well as the receiver by using the mobile. Now, implementing the RBI's permission, the IMPS will additionally facilitate funds transfer from ATM to mobile as well as the Internet to mobile,” said Mr A. P. Hota, Managing Director and CEO, NPCI.
NPCI, that was created in late 2009 as a possible umbrella institution for operating various retail payment systems in the nation, is working with a few banks to make sure that they will be able to launch the facility to transfer funds from ATM to mobile and Internet to mobile.
As soon as the IMPS picks up, long queues outside bank branches to produce remittances end up being an item of the past.
For instance, auto-drivers and cabbies, who otherwise lose an element of their day's earnings simply because they need to queue up outside a bank branch during business hours for sending money home, could remit funds to their kin traveling any moment belonging to the day.
Neither bank holiday nor a bank strike is going to be a hindrance with regards to remitting funds through IMPS using mobile, ATM or Internet
IMPS enables bank prospective business partners make use of the mobile instrument as a thoughtful channel for accessing their banks accounts and remit funds. Payments, including merchant and financial inclusion-related, might be created with only the mobile/ phone number of the beneficiary.
Atm to mobile funds transfer
The procedure
For implementing mobile banking facility through IMPS, a remitter needs to register with his bank and obtain seven-digit Mobile Money Identifier (MMID) number and Mobile Personal Identification Number (MPIN). The beneficiary needs to link his mobile number to his bank-account and obtain MMID from the bank.
A remitter can initiate an IMPS transaction in four basic steps by keying the beneficiary/payee's mobile number, MMID, amount and MPIN. Both the remitter along with the sender get SMS confirmation as soon as the transaction is placed through.
Limit per 24 hrs
The RBI has created a daily cap of Rs 50,000 per customer, each day for both funds transfer and transactions involving purchase of goods and services under IMPS while the communication coming from the mobile handset to your bank's server as well as server of a typical mobile payments service provider is encrypted. In situations the communication is not really encrypted then a transaction limit if Rs 5,000.
Transferring funds because of an ATM or Internet will probably be simpler as only the Mobile Money Identifier number of the beneficiary is required.
To enhance the utilization of mobile for banking transactions banks need to create awareness among customers in regards to the safety, simplicity, period and cost saving, and instant funds transfer components of mobile banking using IMPS.