Mobile payment – RBI wants banks to go slow
We are bombarded with how happy our lives will be if we have a mobile connection. We can talk to our near and dear, who are near and far. Talk time unlimited, talk day and night at no extra costs, no roaming charges blah blah blah. Recently, some service providers have also started more suvidha services where you can send money to your near and dear, pay your bills etc and after all these chores if you exhaust your talk time, you can recharge too on your mobile. When service providers are churning out innovative ideas to stay ahead in the mobile race, RBI is waving the red flag.
Reserve Bank of India is in the process of finalizing the Operative Guidelines for banks on mobile payments. The Draft Guidelines were placed on RBI website and a number of comments have since been received. The comments are being compiled and after evaluation of the comments, the final Guidelines would be issued.
In the meantime, some banks have already started offering mobile payment services to their customers without waiting for the release of RBI's Guidelines.
While RBI has no objection for use of mobile channel to provide basic services such as mobile alerts for credit or debit entry, balance enquiry etc. which are in the nature of providing information, it cautions that due care needs to be taken for permitting the channel for customers to initiate payment instructions.
There are a number of attendant issues and therefore, banks are advised to keep on hold their mobile payment services till issuance of the final Guidelines. Banks may also dissociate themselves from any mobile based money transfer service which has not received explicit approval of RBI or not covered by any of the Guidelines issued by RBI.
The draft Guidelines contain some interesting information – a sample:
International Experience
There is very little material available on the regulatory frame work for mobile payments by central banks. Although there are a number of research articles available, they refer to the practices available rather than regulatory guidelines. Efforts to collect specific regulatory guidelines, from a few countries where person to person remittance through mobile channel has been implemented, have not been a success. Mobile payment framework in most countries is covered under the General Electronic Banking Guidelines. However, on the website of Consultative Group for Assisting the Poor (CGAP), there are several discussion papers on mobile payments. Examples of Kenya, Philippines, South Africa and Tanzania have been described in great detail. In these countries, cash-in and cash-out for the purpose of remittance is permitted to be done by the distributors of mobile companies. State Bank of Pakistan has also placed a 'Draft policy paper on Regulatory Framework for Mobile Payments in Pakistan' on their website for public comments.
So all those mobile addicts have to wait to get more suvidha services till RBI guides the banks on how to receive and transmit your payments.
Maybe in the next confidence vote in Parliament, they can dump a bunch of mobile phones on the Secretary General's table to show how much money had been transferred!
DPSS.CO.No.144/02.23.01/2008-2009, Dated: July 22, 2008