Bharti Airtel, a telecom player, has got the approval from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to collect a maximum of Rs 5,000 from customers, which can be converted to virtual money stored on mobile phones, and can be used at outlets that have a tie-up with Airtel.
All leading mobile phone companies are also slated to get the ‘semi-closed wallet’ licence over the next couple of months. Currently, the country has more than 650 million mobile users and all telecom companies are looking at offering a range of financial services, including the electronic version of the leather wallet, which can be used to make secure payments across a wide spectrum of goods and services covering all sectors, Such concepts are already operational in Japan, South Korea, parts of China and certain markets in Europe.
Earlier this year, RBI in its annual monetary policy said that it was looking to use mobile phones as a medium for taking banking facilities to the remote and far-flung areas. According to the RBI guidelines, the pre-paid value that is being loaded will be distinct from talktime. In other words, the telecom operator will not be able to create money. For the consumer, this implies, they will not be able to exchange this money for talktime.
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