Paymate, the Mayfield Fund, KPCB and Sherpalo ventures funded mobile payments company has announced the launch of its mobile payment services in Nepal through a local representative PayBill. Paymate appears to be providing the technology solution to PayBill, to enable consumers to pay for mobile recharge, pay utility bills, buy tickets, P2P money transfer, etc. PayBill has partnered with Nepals largest private bank Everest Bank and Nepal Telecom, the countrys largest telco. Three months ago, when Paymate had announced plans to launch in Nepal, there was no mention of PayBill. According to Manish Kumar Subba, Founder and CEO of PayBill Pvt. Ltd, the project has been in the works for over 14 months. Outside of India, Paymate has a presence in Sri Lanka, where it has a tie-up with Bank of Ceylon. Ajay Adiseshann, MD of Paymate had told Mint in September that the company expects overseas to contribute 12-15 percent of revenues by March. Their tie-up in Sri Lanka is a 50-50 JV, focused primarily on remittances. State run Nepal Telecom has 2.2 million subscribers, and operates both GSM and CDMA services. PayBills services, like Paymates in India, are SMS based, though the PIN authentication for Giftmate (which I've used) is IVRS based. I do think there's an issue with the number of PINs one needs to remember now - a separate PIN for the ATM, for Internet Banking and mobile banking. If the account is the same, shouldn't the PIN be independent of the mode of access? Update: Probir Roy, Founder of Paymate…
