Residents of Bangalore, India, soon will be able to pay their water bills online or with their mobile phones under a pilot the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board is overseeing, a spokesperson for the agency tells CardLine.
The agency expects the pilot to start during the first week of January, and it will focus on the Indiranagar area of Bangalore. The spokesperson would not reveal the participating technology vendors or financial-service providers.
Consumers will pay 5 rupees (10 U.S. cents or 7 euro cents) per bill payment with a mobile phone, the spokesperson says. The agency did not say how much consumers would pay for online transactions.
Earlier this year, the city of Chennai, India, launched a service that enables consumers to pay property taxes using mobile phones. Bangalore-based mobile-payments firm JiGrahak Mobility Solutions Ltd., which operates under the "ngpay" brand, provided the technology for the service. Consumers tie their debit or credit cards to the mobile platform.
