Mobile Banking at a Glance

What can be better than banking on-the-go? Mobile banking has emerged rapidly in India. This much-needed service proves beneficial in today’s fast-moving business environment with unending deadlines for fulfilment, constant appointments scheduled, and several meetings to attend. The mobile banking service allows people to bank from anywhere, anytime, and through any mode i.e., through SMS or through WAP. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open global specification that empowers mobile users with wireless devices to easily access and interact with information and services instantly. Moreover, it provides convenient and fast delivery of relevant information and services to mobile users.

Mobile banking is one of the hottest areas being constantly developed in the banking sector. The following operations can be conducted through most mobile phones:

• Bill payments
• Balance enquiry
• Fund/ATM transfers
• SMS banking
• Location of the nearest branch/ATM
• Cheque payment cancellation

There are certain regulatory and supervisory issues pertaining to mobile banking that are issued by the RBI. The guidelines issued by Reserve Bank on "Know Your Customer (KYC)", "Anti Money Laundering (AML)", and "Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT)" from time to time would be applicable to mobile based banking services also. The RBI also says that on registration of the customer, the full details of the terms and conditions of the service offered shall be communicated to the customer.

A per transaction limit of Rs. 2500/- shall be imposed on all mobile banking transactions, subject to an overall cap of Rs. 5000/- per day, per customer. Banks may also put in place monthly transaction limit depending on the bank's own risk perception of the customer.

Though an extremely intelligent and handy service, the mobile banking service has also faced slack from time to time. There are a large number of mobile phones and it is a big challenge to offer the mobile banking solution on any type of device. The security of financial transactions also complicates things. However, every product or service, alongside its bad points has its own set of advantages. Mobile banking has come in handy in many parts of the world with little or no infrastructure development, especially in remote and rural areas. Thus, mobile banking is also very popular in countries where most of their population is unbanked. In most of the countries, banks can only be found in big cities where the customers have to travel hundreds of miles to reach the nearest bank. The biggest advantage that mobile banking offers is that it drastically cuts down the costs of providing service to the customers.

The Indian banks not only provide saving accounts but also provide mobile banking service, insurance service, demat account and mutual fund investments service.