Friday, November 11, 2011

Send money from ATM to Mobile In INDIA


In a bid to encourage the use of mobiles for banking transactions, the Reserve Bank of India has allowed the National Payments Corporation of India to facilitate money transfer by a bank customer from an ATM/Internet to a beneficiary's mobile phone.
The RBI's permission to expand the scope of the money transfer mechanism through the NPCI-promoted Interbank Mobile Payment Service comes at a time when mobile banking transactions are growing at a slow pace.

SLOW GROWTH

Ever since IMPS was launched in August 2010, the number of mobile banking transactions nudged up from 430 mobile banking transactions aggregating Rs 5,142 in August 2010 to 12,511 transactions aggregating Rs 3.80 crore in October 2011. The number of banks which are members of IMPS has increased from four in August 2010 to 28 in October 2011.
“The IMPS has so far facilitated instant inter-bank funds transfer between the sender and the receiver using the mobile. Now, following the RBI's permission, the IMPS will also facilitate funds transfer from ATM to mobile and the Internet to mobile,” said Mr A. P. Hota, Managing Director and CEO, NPCI.
NPCI, which was set up in late 2009 as an umbrella institution for operating various retail payment systems in the country, is working with a few banks so that they can launch the facility to transfer funds from ATM to mobile and Internet to mobile.
Once the IMPS picks up, long queues outside bank branches to make remittances will become a thing of the past.
For example, auto-drivers and cabbies, who otherwise lose a part of their day's earnings as they have to queue up outside a bank branch during business hours for sending money home, could remit funds to their kin on the move any time of the day.
Neither bank holiday nor a bank strike will be a hindrance when it comes to remitting funds through IMPS using mobile, ATM or Internet, emphasised Mr Hota.
IMPS enables bank customers to use the mobile instrument as a channel for accessing their banks accounts and remit funds. Payments, including merchant and financial inclusion-related, can be made with just the mobile number of the beneficiary. 

THE MECHANICS

  For using mobile banking facility through IMPS, a remitter has to register with his bank and get seven-digit Mobile Money Identifier (MMID) number and Mobile Personal Identification Number (MPIN). The beneficiary has to link his mobile number to his bank account and get MMID from the bank.
A remitter can initiate an IMPS transaction in four simple steps by keying the beneficiary/payee's mobile number, MMID, amount and MPIN. Both the remitter and the sender get SMS confirmation once the transaction is put through.

LIMIT PER DAY

The RBI has set a daily cap of Rs 50,000 per customer, per day for both funds transfer and transactions involving purchase of goods and services under IMPS when the communication from the mobile handset to the bank's server or the server of the mobile payments service provider is encrypted. In case the communication is not encrypted then the transaction limit if Rs 5,000.
Transferring funds from an ATM or Internet will be simpler as only the Mobile Money Identifier number of the beneficiary will be required.
To improve the usage of mobile for banking transactions, Mr Hota said, banks have to create awareness among customers about the safety, simplicity, time and cost saving, and instant funds transfer features of mobile banking using IMPS. source

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Where Has All The Money Gone!!!!


Where has all the money gone? Despite billions in investment one in four Britons still have poor or no mobile coverage for smartphones

  • Ofcom study finds 7.7m UK homes or businesses do not have a choice of all five 3G mobile companies
  • The worst-hit areas are mid-Wales and the Highlands of Scotland while London comes out best
  • Experts say results are for coverage outside so it could be even worse inside homes and offices
  • Study also shows marked increase in quality of broadband coverage

Billions of pounds of investment in Britain's mobile phone network seems to have been wasted as one in four people still have very poor or no access to 3G services.
Half of the population now owns a smartphone, which rely on faster services for internet and e-mail, but a study by communications watchdog Ofcom has found that vast swathes of the UK lack adequate coverage to make them work properly.
A new study also reveals only 13 per cent of Britain is covered by all the major networks, which means 7.7million UK homes or businesses do not have a choice of all five 3G mobile companies.
In a matching map, areas with best coverage are shaded green, while those with the worst are red, and the fact that large parts of the UK are scarlet shows the poor services many receive. 
Red alert: Ofcom has revealed the level of poor service British mobile users are receiving despite billions in investment
3G coverage by premises: Ofcom has revealed the level of poor service British mobile users are receiving despite billions in investment. Green denotes the best coverage while red shows the worst
Mobile phone companies like Vodafone, T-Mobile, Orange, O2 and 3 have to provide coverage in 80 per cent of the UK, but it seems that they are concentrating on profitable urban areas and pushing aside rural Britain.
'Mobile providers tend to prioritise investment in network infrastructure where the maximum number of consumers and businesses can be served,' an Ofcom spokesman said.
Last year, T-Mobile and 3 together invested £400million in upgrading their 3G capability, and both spent millions more this year.
 
Figures show that by 2009, O2 had already spent more than £500million on network upgrades - and then announced it would invest 'hundreds of millions of pounds' more in the coming years increasing speeds and coverage.
Meanwhile, Orange has claimed it spends £1.5million a day on upgrading its network, which is around £500million per year since at least 2008.
They have also reportedly invested huge sums in developing smartphone technology themselves.
Using data supplied by communications companies, the regulator split the UK into 200 areas and ranked them according to how well they were served.
Struggle: Around half of Britons now have a smartphone like the iPhone, pictured, but millions do not have the coverage needed to use it properly
Struggle: Around half of Britons now have a smartphone like the iPhone, pictured, but millions do not have the coverage needed to use it properly
The worst-hit areas are mid-Wales and the Highlands of Scotland while London comes out best.
The measurements were taken outside and critics think that the situation indoors could be even worse.
Bob Warner, chairman of the Communications Consumer Panel, said 'Ofcom quotes figures for outdoor mobile coverage of buildings and UK geography, but what also matters to most mobile users is the coverage that they get when they're at home or at work.
'Consumers do not want to have to go outside to make and receive calls.
'Although the Ofcom report explains that actual consumer experience will differ from the outdoor figures, in reality consumers indoors will experience much worse coverage.
'The Panel would like to see Ofcom and the industry develop a better measure that reflects how and where consumers and small businesses really use their mobile phones.'
Ofcom is working with the Government on how to invest £150million to help fill gaps in mobile coverage.
The findings will now be used as a base against which future performance can be measured.
Ofcom chief technology officer Steve Unger said: 'This is our first report to the Government on the UK's communications infrastructure.
'We hope it will be a useful reference point for interested parties, particularly in the light of the recent Government funding package of £150 million to help address mobile not-spots.'
The study, part of the regulator's first Infrastructure Report, also found internet traffic in the UK has increased seven-fold in the past five years.
Domestic broadband use now averages at 17 Gigabytes per month, enough to download 11 films, stream 12 hours on the BBC iPlayer or listen to 12 days of audio over the net.
According to Ofcom, 'data from the London Internet Exchange shows that traffic over its network, which connects UK internet service providers, has increased seven-fold in the past five years'.
Mixed: Broadband coverage in the UK has improved markedly but some areas still have very poor services
Mixed: Broadband coverage in the UK has improved markedly but some areas still have very poor services
source

Mobango's Initiative To Help Developers


Our Apps Coverage is brought to you by Intel AppUp℠ center. Join the Intel AppUp℠ developer program to develop and sell your apps on the Intel AppUp℠ center.
Mauj (People Infocomm) owned mobile applications and content marketplace Mobango has today announced ‘Mobango Showcase’ , which it claims is a service which enables “developers to feature their applications and brand their presence to Mobango’s 6 million registered members.” According to a press release, it is a homepage property on Mobango that is a showcase, and it will allow developers opting for it to be able to customize the mobile pages with “their own their own brand colours, cross links and messages.”
Now a promotion section for content is not new to Mobango – it had a promote service when Mauj bought it – so this appears to be a case where the site is offering developers the ability to customize their apps page on the website (possibly for a fee). Herocraft, a developer with over 100 high quality mobile games like ZumZum and Yumsters! is expected to be the first developer to try it out, but when we accessed the ZumZum page on mobile, it had no customization.
Additionally, for a mobile site, we found Mobango rather heavy, with the ZumZum page going over 129 kb in size before loading completely. It’s worrying how much larger it will be once the company allows customization. Unfortunately, there is very little information in the press note on what exactly Mobango is trying (we couldn’t find any Showcase related information and terms and conditions on its website), and the PR rep who mailed us the info said they would get back to us. It’s been a couple of hours, but to be honest, given how responsive the People group has been in the past, we’re not expecting one. If spot something we haven’t, tell us. source