The Reserve Bank of India has increased the deposit limits for mobile wallets in that country to 50,000 rupees (US$1,112 or 762 euros) from 5,000 rupees previously, according to a notification it sent to all banks and operators on May 4.
However, the central bank also declared its intention to treat so-called semi-closed mobile wallets on par with the other semi-closed prepaid instruments in that consumers may not use them to withdraw cash or redeem funds.
As such, consumers may load funds into a semi-closed mobile wallet account using a licensed company and access value only when making certain payments, Mrinalini Manral, an independent banking analyst based in Mumbai, tells PaymentsSource.
The central bank says it increased the deposit limit to facilitate the larger acceptance of mobile phone-based prepaid instruments. Consumers in India may use the semi-closed m-wallets to pay utility, water, telephone or mobile phone bills, insurance premiums and to pay for cooking gas, broadband Internet service, cable subscriptions and citizen services.
Mobile operators Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Essar Ltd. had recently joined with State Bank of India Ltd. and ICICI Bank to launch semi-closed m-wallet services (
In India, closed m-wallets do not allow consumers to load funds into prepaid accounts, but they do instead support payments at checkout using credit card information. Open m-wallets also available support both prepaid-account deposits and cash withdrawals.
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