The Reserve Bank of India has removed the daily limit on mobile transactions to help boost India’s mobile payments market.
The country’s central bank said in a Dec. 22 notice that because more banks are offering mobile payment services, it decided to remove the daily cap of 50,000 rupees (US$1,112 or 762 euros) on mobile payment transactions.
“Banks are increasingly extending mobile-banking facilities to their customers,” the bank said in the notice. “The volume and value of mobile-banking transactions is also showing an uptrend.”
The central bank first capped mobile funds transfers in 2008 at 5,000 rupees and limited mobile purchases of goods and services to 10,000 rupees. In
2009 the bank raised the daily cap to 50,000 rupees for mobile funds transfers and retail purchases (see
The central bank likely opted to remove the limit altogether this week because of input from the Interbank Mobile Payment Service, Mrinalini Manral, a Mumbai-based independent banking analyst, tells PaymentsSource.
National Payment Corp. of India developed and operates the Interbank Mobile Payment Service, which has enabled mobile fund transfers and payments to settle immediately.
“National Payments is a government organization like the central bank,” she says. “While the private players have been asking for this removal for some time, I think it is only when National Payments put its weight behind them that the cap went away.”
