Probably the most interesting comments of the day so far came from Ravi Shankar, EVP and Country Head-Cash Management & Direct Banking for Yes Bank. He explained why most banks are excited about mobile banking - the opportunity lies in the fact that today there are more mobile handsets than bank accounts in India today. He pointed out some Industry-wide issues: -- The first challenge I that we face, even before the first 100000 transactions are completed is - there is a hue and cry about - the bank, the credit card, the telecom operator, the service provider...who owns the customer? There is no real collaboration about the industry, and we will face interoperability issues. -- Who owns the device? We're excited because we don't have to pay for network, availablitly, redundancy, or the device in the hands of the customer. Who owns it? -- Who owns the telecom network for banking transactions...who should govern these transactions - the TRAI or the RBI? There are forums for discussion, but do we have solutions? -- Telecom customers are changing companies, banking customers are changing banks. How are these governed? -- How are you going to deal with a situation where customers are moving from paying using the talk time, to pay with the your wallet/bank? No operators are here. I as a comsumer want to buy Rs. 500 of groceries which is 5 km from my house. I want to buy a Rs. 5000 book off the web. The way consumer…
