The largest m-banking in India

[img_assist|nid=7439|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=75|height=100]A complete mobile banking service is to be introduced in India by the State Bank of India (SBI) by the end of June. The service is planned to be applied to all of the bank's 13 million customers which means that this mobile banking program will become the largest in the whole country. The project is believed to be the same kind as of many new-formed banks but in a much greater way.

SBI is determined to purchase the entire mobile banking offering from Spanco Telesystems and Solutions, a Mumbai-based telecom integration services provider. It is believed that SBI wants to possess the entire mobile banking platform and to process it from their own technology center.

"We are very much interested in mobile payments. That is the next generation of our payment systems and we are very serious about it," says Deepak Chawla, SBI deputy MD. The service is to include the latest m-banking innovations and is not to do just with trivial options.

The customers will be impelled to pay their bills over mobile phones and P2P fund transfer with a limit of Rs 50,000 will be introduced.

"The service is in the final stages of production and we are conducting pilots to ensure it is running properly," states an official from Spanco Telesystems.

All customers in the country will get access to the service. The system is to be based on existing technologies including SMS and GPRS messaging media.

The bank is also to partner with mobile operators like mChek and PayMate after the launch of the system. PayMate is already collaborating with some merchants across the country. Besides it is cooperating with Standard Chartered Bank and Corporation Bank on mobile banking operations.

As for mChek through this mobile operator SBI is going to deliver services like bill-payment on Airtel phones and person-to-person fund transfer.