Mobile Money in India

We are pretty much used to paper money. Initially, we used to carry hard currency and exchange money for goods or services. Banking became wide-spread and issue of cheques - local and outstation - has become commonplace. Then we got plastic money, where by we can use credit or debit cards (cards issued by banks like ICICI, SBI and HDFC and supported by payment networks like VISA, MasterCard and American Express) to make payments - online or offline. Online or Internet banking has come into existence, which made money transfer between accounts or even online payments for some of the services like utilities and insurance premiums easy.

One of the things that 2012 should be remembered is for the onset of Mobile Money in India. Airtel (one of the leading Communication Service Providers or Telecom Operator) has launched 'Airtel Money', http://airtelmoney.in, through which it is offering mobile money service.

One can load cash into their mobile (against their mobile number) through Internet Banking or authorized airtel outlets. The cash in mobile can be used to make airtel service payments (airtel landline, postpaid and prepaid services), utility (electricity, gas and phone services) payments, insurance premium payment or even for buying movie tickets and shopping expenses (with authorized shopping outlets) ! Apart from payments, one can also transfer money from one airtel account to the other and even to a bank account. The good part is I don't need to have a GPRS connection as it works with USSD (just like AirtelLive) and SMS. Don't forget to check the charges applicable :-)

This service is a classic case of converge of Communications, IT and Banking. Though the features of the service are good, I wonder If I have a real need to go for this service.