Mobile Payments: A Step into the Future

Remember the days when a Nokia 6600 was your prized possession, just for the reason that it gave you ease of mobility when compared to your telephone sets stationed at your house. Over the years, mobile phones have progressed to become the fastest and the easiest ‘touch point' for companies and brands to communicate to their consumers. Handset makers, telecom companies, brands all are progressively innovating to bring the world to your hands via the mobile device.

How far has India progressed in using mobile technology to bring about revolutionary services that change the way people communicate, consume, transact, be it as part of their social lifestyle or as mundane as their daily chores?

With over 750 mn users in India ready to be served and entertained, what are the blue ocean strategies the telecom sector can apply to enable services/products that can bring about a sea change in how average Indian perceives the use of mobile phone in his/her life?
Case in point being mobile payments and learning/education on mobile.

Mobile payments, I strongly believe, is the Holy Grail the telecom sector has been searching for since its formative years. There are a myriad of reasons why ‘mobile phones' are still not considered a safe and worthy device to transact money. The Achilles heel here is the expensive technology that needs to be subsidized enough so that it can be made available to the general public. NFC (Near Field Communications) is the enabler when it comes to mobile payments.

WHAT IS NFC?

NFC is a set of standards to establish radio communication between two mobile devices when kept in proximity of each other, by touching them together to enable data transfer. But isn't bluetooth similar?

Well, the biggest difference between NFC and Bluetooth is that you don't need to ‘pair' two NFC-enabled devices as well as NFC allows communication of NFC enabled device with an unpowered device such as switched off mobile phone, contactless smart credit card, smart posters, etc. Also, NFC has a shorter range, thus removing ‘noises' or unwanted interception thus making it a safer and a much more stable solution when in crowded areas.

NFC enabled phones are the crème de la crème in the handset market, and it would burn your pockets to buy one of the NFC enabled smartphone. So how to bridge the gap and make it affordable?

iKaaz, a Bengaluru based startup, has created two alternative solutions. The first one is a tag that converts any phone into an NFC-enabled one; and second, a ‘reader' which the receiving party or the merchant can plug into his mobile phone.

HOW TO MAKE IT WORK?

All you got to do is to buy an NFC tag (retail price of approx `100) and the retailer link the tag to your phone number. Next, you just place it beside the battery and your phone is NFC enabled, Voila! Now you can even link your bank accounts to the tag including other numerous payment options. On the other side, the retailer or the merchant buys the reader (which costs around `2,000) and is plugged and read into the mobile phone via the iKaaz app.

Another revolutionary model conceived and perfected by Safaricom, a mobile operator based in Kenya, is the M-Pesa.

M-Pesa customers can deposit and withdraw money from a network of agents that includes airtime resellers and retail outlets acting as banking agents. Vodafone has made this possible in India in partnership with HDFC bank, though the service is limited to some areas.

Lastly, mobile education and mobile learning. Telecom operators have started their own ‘mobile learning teams' that are working to bring college courses, university certifications and general learning to subscribers on their mobile handsets.

Mobitrans FZLLC, a UAE based company, is at the forefront of bringing mobile learning via their service ‘Mobileacademy' that enables' snack learning products' to the users and are soon going to launch their service in India in partnership with the telecom operators.

While we await these technologies and products to come to fruition we, the general audience, need to voice our needs and desires and force these companies to make such services easier, affordable and accessible. Social network platforms could be a good start to voice your opinion, anyone?