Money Transfer Made Possible through Mobile Phones

National Payment Corporation of India made it possible for customers in November 2010 to be able to transfer money from their accounts to any other account in the country using their cell-phones via the National Payment Corporation of India’s (NPCI) Inter-bank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS). The facility was inaugurated by Shyamala Gopinath, deputy governor, RBI on 22 November 2010. NPCI assured that the system was as secure as the net-banking facility. The major advantage of IMPS is that a customer does not have to use a computer or an internet-enabled phone to transfer funds. So far transfer of money through mobile phones could only be possible if both sender and receiver held accounts with the same bank. According to the new system both the receiver and sender of the money should have mobile numbers and hold accounts with their banks. They will both have to register with their bank to secure a seven-digit mobile money transfer identifier number (MMID), with the help of these two numbers, the payer will be able to transfer the amount in the payee’s account in real time. Currently seven banks namely- HDFC, ICICI, AXIS and SBI have gone live with the system.

The NPCI is the umbrella organization for all retail payment systems in the country owned and operated by banks.