The Hindu Business Line : Pay through the mobile phone

Even at a 3 per cent conversion of every mobile bill payer onto an mCommerce solution, the industry would be worth around Rs 3,000 crore, estimates Sanjay Swamy, CEO, mChek.

The Bangalore-based company provides mobile-based security and payment services, enabling users to transact, through their mobiles, the payment of utility bills and insurance policies, buying airline, bus and movie tickets, and recharging their prepa id mobile accounts, among other services.

Over the telephone, and subsequently through e-mail, Swamy told eWorld that while the mCommerce potential is big, awareness and adoption will be key challenges, especially in the initial stages of growth.

In this interview, he shares his thoughts on the challenges and growth drivers. Excerpts:

What are the mCommerce trends globally?

Mobile commerce or mCommerce is still a nascent industry even globally and is expected to grow over the next few years.

There are many examples in the South-East Asian countries and in Africa where successful domestic models have grown to reach a sizable part of the population.

What are the initial challenges that you are facing in the adoption of this platform?

The mobile device is essentially a voice-enabled network connected to a personal computing device that is accessible to all.

Suddenly everyone is on the network, has a unique network identity and is also capable of storing, processing and forwarding information electronically using a voice or text interface.

The mobile phone can become our primary interaction/transaction tool and can eventually be the primary network access device.

A host of network-based services, including information services, social networking services, identity management solutions and secure transaction-based services, can eventually move to the mobile platform.

Awareness and adoption will be a key challenge. Another challenge will be to bring the eco-system of banks, telecom operators, payment industry players and merchants onto a common platform so that consumers can realise the value offered by mobile payment platforms.

What are the growth drivers for mCommerce?

Organised retail in India is still at its infancy with low penetration levels and the same is true for new channels such as eCommerce and mCommerce.

One of the key factors that will drive adoption for mCommerce is that now more than 290 million Indians have a post-paid bill to pay or a pre-paid top-up to be made every month.

There is a built-in inconvenience of having to go to specific outlets (which will never be close enough) where they will need to make this payment.

The opportunity is clearly in converting every mobile bill payer onto an mCommerce solution.

Even at a 3 per cent conversion, the industry would be around Rs 3,000 crore. The ability to provide a simple, secure solution that works on all mobile phones will be a key factor in driving growth.

mChek on the consumers’ mobile will allow those who have access to a financial instrument to pay from the convenience of their mobile anywhere, anytime.

We believe that once the habit of making payments to mobile service providers is made, the expansion of this set to other payments and purchases will only be a matter of time.

What has been the response to your offerings?

The initial response has been very encouraging. Users have been proactively using mChek for transactions such as post-paid bill payments/prepaid top-up. We have tied up with Airtel and will be announcing tie-ups with other mobile service providers shortly.

We also work closely with banks including ICICI, HDFC, State Bank of India, Citibank and Corporation Bank and will be adding more banks in the coming days.

Some of our users have paid insurance premium worth Rs 1 lakh during a single transaction within a few hours of registering for mChek!

What is your revenue model?

mChek works on a hosted application service provider (ASP) model and generates revenue from clients and merchants based on transactions completed on mChek.

dmurali@thehindu.co.in

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SIB to launch mobile banking

More Stories on : Interview | M-Commerce

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