Who uses m-payments more often?

A survey conducted by AC Nielsen showed that 96 per cent of men use mobile payment solutions to settle their utility bills.

However, Probir Roy, founder and director of PayMate, a mobile payment solution service provider, expects females to “catch up” on the matter. “I think these are early days and early results. A lot of people are not aware of mobile payment solutions,” said he.

Currently m-commerce is provided by banks and their technology partners such as PayMate, Obopay, Oxycash and ITZCash; with PayMate alone offering solutions to 22 banks. Telecom service providers are not involved in money transfer processes yet. 

Some other data that the service revealed was that 78 per cent of the service users are 21-30 years old, and that 52 per cent of the respondents use the service to pay off utility bills. Some of the most popular payment types made through mobile phones were mobile bills, purchasing movie tickets and making monthly payments. Vijay Balakrishnan, chief marketing officer, at Obopay found that above mentioned factors could mean that soon m-payments will find more users among women, “because more women tend to pay utility bills.”