Pay Your Bill Through SMS

Ticket payments and fund transfers are now an SMS away. You could soon pay for a cup of coffee or dinner at your favourite restaurant using your mobile phone. Not just that, you could also send money to a needy relative via your phone.

The unprecedented growth in the number of mobile phone users has enabled banks to transform mobile phones from only giving customers information on their bank accounts into an alternate channel for payments.

All major banks in India are now entering into tie-ups with companies, facilitating payments through the mobile phone. SBI and ICICI Bank have already undertaken pilot projects on mobile banking, in association with Airtel and payments-company mChek. Citibank already has a service-partnership with Paymate. M-payments operate on a very simple mechanism globally. The details of the credit or debit card get stored onto the user’s phone, following which, transactions are completed via an SMS.

When a user wants to pay using his mobile phone, all he needs to do is share his mobile number with the merchant. Instantly, he receives an SMS asking him to authorise the payment. The customer can do this by confirming the alpha-numeric code sent to him, as well as the amount.

Within few seconds, the bank concerned will authenticate the details and debit the amount. Companies are trying to encrypt card details onto SIM cards, to target people using even the entry-level handsets. Those with sophisticated handsets can download software to facilitate the process.

Also, to start with, each bank will use its own payment-gateway, which should eventually come down to 2-3 gateways.

Source: The ET