The RBI has issued a new set of operative guidelines for Mobile Banking in India, with changes based on comments from stakeholders. A couple of things significant in this set of guidelines: Transaction limit Transactions are limited to only Rs. 2500 ($55) per day, and Rs. 5000 ($110) per day, per customer. While this is an increase over the Rs. 1500 ($33) transaction cap and Rs. 2500 ($55) mentioned in the previous guidelines, it is still a very small amount. Take my example - My mobile phone bill is over Rs. 4000 per month, and I won't be able to pay it using mobile banking services. This appears to a move to reduce the impact of fraud, since they've also asked banks to put a monthly transaction limit, based on the bank’s own risk perception of the customer. Across Mobile Operators The onus, clearly, is on the banks to ensure that customers across mobile operators have access to mobile banking services. They may restrict themselves only to one mobile operator for a period of six months. Two scenarios are possible in this instance: -- Either banks will have to partner with multiple mobile payment service providers, each of whom have access to different operators, or -- Mobile service providers will have to provide banks with access to different operators. For example, MChek provides ICICI Bank, SBI, HDFC and Corporation Bank services only on Airtel in India. So either MChek will have to tie-up with all operators within six months, or…
