TELECOM OPERATORS EXPECTED TO MAKE BANKING EASIER: NEW LOOK FOR BANKING

Mobile banking will soon be possible with a basic handset and without accessing the internet. The telecom regulator will soon ask telcos — many of which have been resisting for years — to enable bank-authorized mobile payment companies to offer such service. Telecom companies are expected to fall in line with local and international payment companies, including an associate company of Visa, lobbying with the regulator and the government for permitting them to tap the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel of telcos.

The USSD channel is a simple interactive text messaging system that can be used by a mobile phone subscriber to reach out to her bank for anything -- transfer funds, check balance amount, pay bills, cancel a cheque, request for a cheque book, obtain an account statement, and even buy books and music using debit or credit cards. Customers - without 2G or 3G connectivity or a smartphone - have to simply key in something like *67# -- or any other number a telco provides - to 'talk' to her bank.

According to a government official, "The Telecommunication tariff (fifty Sixth Amendment) Order, 2013 states that all telecom operators are 'obliged' to provide connectivity to any payment aggregator who has set up a USSD gateway. Therefore, Trai will ask the telecom operators to comply with it."

Given the growth in mobile subscriber base and that 75 per cent of users do not have a smartphone, the decision could increase bank penetration and customer convenience while lower cost for banks. Even though NPCI has the code and is ready to provide USSS based banking in Hindi and other languages, its non-profit character and limited budget has held it back from launching a large ad campaign and striking joint promotion deals with banks.

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Design Once, Deploy Everywhere: Mobile First, It’s time to rethink things

Today's platform developers plan for mobile enterprise applications with the highest levels of security and access control. Soon the enterprise's issue of mobile security will become moot.

In August, a survey by Software Advice showed that only 39 percent of employees work under a “bring your own device” (BYOD) policy for mobile technology in the workplace. More surprisingly, 20% didn't even know whether there was such a policy in their organizations. That means, when it comes to enterprise mobility, employees either are making up their own rules, or just not following any.

At this point, some information security specialists are probably clutching their heads, wondering what these statistics mean for workplace data security in the mobile world. They can breathe easy. Application development technology is getting to the point where businesses simply shouldn’t have to worry about mobile security issues, and can instead focus on driving new business value from mobile channels.

BYOD policies for security and engagement are becoming a thing of the past – as long as forward-thinking companies take a device-agnostic cloud-based approach to enterprise application development.

A new concept -- the enterprise application platform -- will help revolutionize software delivery on the desktop and on mobile devices in the next few years.   An application platform enables the creation of sophisticated and modern custom applications by putting at the developer’s disposal a set of powerful construction tools that are pre-designed for mobile security.

There is so much more to the mobile business environment than instant messages and email. Consequently, more IT departments are starting to think about business value and how their enterprise applications work on mobile devices.

In most cases, the conclusion they've drawn is that enterprise applications are too complex to be rendered on mobile devices. A mobile front end alone is not sufficient (the thinking goes); the entire application likely must be rewritten for the mobile world. But building new applications for each device is a costly proposition.

It’s time to rethink things.

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Wallet Services gaining importance as Telecom Companies Agree On Basic Banking Services through SMSes:

Mobile companies have been persuaded by the Modi government to share a slice of their infrastructure to pave the way for basic banking services through cell phones.

Fund transfer, balance inquiry in savings account, change of PIN, mini statement, cheque book request, etc, will be possible with simple text messages from ordinary handsets and without accessing the Internet.

In the past two months, ten telecom companies have signed pacts with National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the payments gateway backed by the government, to facilitate the service. It will operate on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) channel of the telcos — a simple interactive text messaging system that even allows credit and debit card transactions. However, the current plan is to restrict USSD to basic banking services, including low-value bill payments.

Telecom companies agree on basic banking services through SMSes"The primary reason for the delay in setting up this infrastructure was the apprehension of telcos that their business will be affected if they provide the USSD channel to the banking system. But Trai (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) was justified in indicating that the communication channel should not be restricted...The service is available to anyone having a mobile phone or bank account," AP Hota, MD & CEO of NPCI told ET. Each transaction will cost the user Rs1.50.

The USSD system can widen the scope of mobile banking transactions from "wallet services" provided by telecom firms through a separate entity. While under wallet services, subscribers can carry out transactions like prepaid mobile charges, utility bill payments and money transfers among other things, the USSD enables inter-bank transactions. For instance, a subscriber of telco A with an account in Bank B can transfer money to a subscriber of telco C having an account with bank D. Here, telcos access NPCI's centralised system which is linked to banks.

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