The Reserve Bank of India has increased limits for transactions initiated with mobile phones, the country’s central bank said in a notification released this week. The bank raised the limit for mobile phone funds transfers and retail purchases to 50,000 rupees (US$1,070 or 745 euros) per day, a bank spokesperson tells PaymentsSource. Previously, the central bank capped mobile funds transfers at 5,000 rupees, while it limited mobile purchases of goods and services to 10,000 rupees. Those limits stood for more than a year. “In addition, transactions up to 1,000 rupees can be facilitated by banks without end-to-end encryption,” the spokesperson adds. In addition, the central bank says it will allow banks to offer services that enable consumers to transfer funds from bank accounts that recipients can redeem in cash instead of account credits. “These funds can be [redeemed] by recipients via ATMs or through agents appointed by banks as business correspondents,” the spokesperson says. “The limit for cash transfer through ATMs or business correspondents has been capped at 5,000 rupees per transaction and 25,000 rupees monthly.”

The number of contactless smart cards shipped per year will break the 1 billion mark by 2014, United Kingdom-based IMS Research predicts in a recent report. “The market for contactless is set to nearly double between 2008 and 2014 as the three largest end-user sectors–government and health care identification, transportation, and payment and banking cards–all gain traction, analyst Don Tait said in a statement. The report cites health care as the biggest sector, but transportation is booming. IMS also expects bank and payment cards to move the fastest toward contactless. Though there are relatively few shipments in that sector thus far, consumer awareness and adoption are growing, the firm says. However, adoption is not always smooth, according to research director John Devlin. “One key area that has yet to fully adopt contactless is mobile,” he says, citing the lack of a common certification standard as a chief cause. The lack of agreements between various stakeholders also is holding back the growth in Near Field Communication payments, the company says. IMS is not forecasting major contactless shipments in the mobile segment until 2012.

Monitise PLC, the British mobile banking vendor, says it plans a broader push next year into mobile retailing, initially in the United Kingdom, then across Europe and in the United States.

One more person-to-person payment application for mobile devices might seem merely like incremental progress toward mobile payments, but it demonstrates the increasing pressure to make phones into financial tools, analysts said earlier this month.

A substantial percentage of customers now access account information via smart phones and handsets rather than PCs, even at home.

The alternative-payment processor mPayy Inc. on Thursday announced a mobile payment app for handsets that run the Android operating system from Google Inc.

Monitise PLC, the British mobile banking vendor, says it plans a broader push next year into mobile retailing, initially in the United Kingdom, then across Europe and in the United States.

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.

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Merchants that accept payments through PayPal Inc. can begin conducting mobile credit card transactions through an agreement between PayPal and Billing Revolution, according to the Seattle-based provider of mobile-payments technology.

The National Bank of Kuwait has launched a contactless mobile-payments test in Kuwait that relies on Near Field Communication technology. The test also involves Visa Inc., Kuwait-based mobile-network operator Zain and United States-based contactless-technology vendor Vivotech Inc., which is providing the electronic wallets for the NFC-enabled phones and over-the-air provisioning software. The test, scheduled to run until April, involves no fewer than 500 of the bank's credit cardholders and relies on Nokia 6212 handsets. Trial participants download Visa credit card-account details to their mobile phones. Participants can use their phones to make contactless purchases at some 100 merchants located at The Avenues mall.

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