India’s Reserve Bank Extends Mobile Funds-Transfer Service To Include Payments

The National Payments Corp. of India has received permission to expand the scope of its interbank mobile funds-transfer service to include payments, the authority announced May 5.

The Reserve Bank of India is allowing National Payments to route merchant payments and transactions initiated through ATMs and online through the interbank mobile-payment service, according to a corporation press release.

Users of the service now may pay utility bills, make purchases at retail locations, pay government fees and make donations, a spokesperson for the corporation says.

Government-owned National Payments rolled out its instant interbank mobile fund-transfer service in November (see story). The service initially enabled customers of seven banks in the country to exchange funds with one another, but they could not use the service to make payments.

ICICI Bank Ltd., HDFC Bank Ltd. and Axis Bank Ltd. were the biggest private banks, by customer base, among the seven founding institutions, but some smaller state-owned banks have since joined (see story).

As on May 3, some participating 20 banks had issued more than 10 million mobile-money identifications to registered customers so they may use the interbank service, the spokesperson says.

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