Aiming to promote use of mobile banking services across the country, telecom regulator Trai has come out with guidelines and tariff on unstructured supplementary service data (USSD)-based mobile banking services.
USSD technology is used by telecom operators to send alerts to their users. It can be used for pre-paid call-back service, location-based content services and menu-based information services.
"We have come out with a framework to help bank agents to interface with service providers for the use of SMS, USSD and IVR channels to provide mobile banking services. The authority wants to utilise the benefits of mobile banking for financial inclusion," Trai Chairman Rahul Khullar said. A large section of the population, especially in rural areas, do not have an easy access to banks and this facility will help to tide over that shortcoming, he added.
Trai has prescribed that ceiling tariff for an outgoing USSD-based mobile banking service shall be Rs 1.50 per USSD session. "Telecom service providers should collect charges from their subscribers for providing the USSD to deliver mobile banking services," the regulator added.
All service providers should facilitate not only the banks, but also the unauthorised agents of banks to use SMS, USSD and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to provide banking services to bank customers, it said.
USSD technology is used by telecom operators to send alerts to their users. It can be used for pre-paid call-back service, location-based content services and menu-based information services.
"We have come out with a framework to help bank agents to interface with service providers for the use of SMS, USSD and IVR channels to provide mobile banking services. The authority wants to utilise the benefits of mobile banking for financial inclusion," Trai Chairman Rahul Khullar said. A large section of the population, especially in rural areas, do not have an easy access to banks and this facility will help to tide over that shortcoming, he added.
Trai has prescribed that ceiling tariff for an outgoing USSD-based mobile banking service shall be Rs 1.50 per USSD session. "Telecom service providers should collect charges from their subscribers for providing the USSD to deliver mobile banking services," the regulator added.
All service providers should facilitate not only the banks, but also the unauthorised agents of banks to use SMS, USSD and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to provide banking services to bank customers, it said.
No comments:
Post a Comment