Mobile payments: A step forward for regularizing money channels: stop money laundering and black money

World is fighting against corruption so as India and I see mobile payments as a potential solution to check on corruption, if they are made mandatory and this quite possible in a country like India and other developing nations where mobile phone industry is growing rapidly.

According to the recent DoT data, Total telephone subscriber base in the country grew by 4.42 per cent to 939.57 million, while the teledensity has increased to 77.28 per cent at the end of August 2012. The user base stood at 899.78 million and teledensity at 74.96 per cent the end of August 2011. The increase in teledensity is mainly coming from wireless section, which has grown to 908.3 million in august 2012, from 865.7 million in the same period last year, while wireline user base declined to 31.2 million by August end this year, from 34.1 million in August 2011.

With mobile penetration approaching almost 100%, talking about mobile payments or NFC seems realistic in current scenario. As per the KPMG global assurance survey of 2012 for telecom industry mobile payments are at highest priority of CSP respondents. In a growing economy, this is one of the factors which are going to transform the telecom industry.

If we look towards other emerging economies, Mobile payment is quite successful in countries such as Kenya, where Over 50 percent population has access to mobile payments while it is yet to take off in a big way in India.

Yes of course there are some key issues and challenges which need to be met to make mobile payments successful in large and diverse country like India. Security and diverse economic levels are some of the key challenges. Having said this the penetration and trust level of mobile payment has reached to a significant level but there is still a large vacuum and scope of various services.

Our inter-bank settlement system is improving which is one of the key factors for mobile banking success. Large and dependable retail networks are also important issues before mobile payment attains its peak in India.

This is a segment, which needs to be watched carefully and be ready with various applications and services which will be of utmost importance for the success.

- Vishwa Nigam,
Market Researcher & Analyst