Mobile Banking

RBI has recently issued guidelines regarding mobile banking.In its circular RBI has directed all banks to adhere to certain norms while dealing with customers through mobile phones.
According to the guidelines only banks which are licensed and supervised in Indiaand have physical presence in India will be allowed to offer mobile banking services.These services will be restricted to to customers of banks .Also only Indian Rupeebased domestic services must be provided through mobile phone.
RBI has prohibited use of mobile banking services for cross border inward and outward transfers.RBI has permitted to utilise the services of business correspondent appointed in compliance with its guidelines for extending this facility to their customers.
Only banks which have implemented core banking solutions [CBS] will be permitted to provide mobile banking servies.
As per RBI guidelines banks shall file suspicious transactions report {STR] to Financial Intelligence Unit-India[FIU-IND] for mobile banking transactions as in the case of normal banking transactions.
RBI has also made it clear that the technology used for providing mobile banking services must be secure and should be geared to ensure confidentialityintegrity and authenticity.
Customers having any mobilephones of any net work operator must be allowed to avail this service Restrictions if any to the customers of particular mobile operator is permissible only dring initial stages of offering this service up to a maximum period of six months.The long term goal of mobile banking frame work in India will be to enable fund transfer from account in one bank to to any other account in the same or any other bank irrespective of the mobile network the customer has subscribed to.This will require inter -operabilitybetween mobile banking servic providers and all banks and development of a host of message formats.Banks have been asked to adopt message formats like ISO 8583 with suitable modification to address specific needs.Banks have been permitted to offer this facility to their custmers subject to a daily cap of Rs 5000 a cusomer for funds transfer and Rs10000 a customer for transactions involving purchase of goods and services.Banks may also fix monthly transaction limit depending upon bank's own risk perception of the customer.