Vodafone Group Plc’s Indian unit and Bharti Airtel Ltd. formed partnerships with the nation’s largest banks to offer phone-banking services in a bid to boost revenue after competition pushed call rates to half a cent a minute. Vodafone Essar Ltd. will tie up with ICICI Bank Ltd., India’s second-largest lender, to offer electronic payments, the companies said in a statement today. Bharti and State Bank of India, the nation’s biggest lender, said separately they will form a venture to provide money transfer and other banking services on mobile phones. Mobile operators in India, in the world’s second-biggest wireless-phone market, are offering new services after call charges plunged with the entry of players including NTT DoCoMo Inc. and Telenor ASA. Through the mobile-phone partnership, the banks will be able to reach more customers including those in remote areas. “Telecom today by far is the most powerful tool available for financial inclusion anywhere in the world,” Bharti Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal said at a briefing in New Delhi. “In our country we have seen the advent of mobile-phone telephony from a rich man’s tool to now a facility that is available for all classes of society.” Almost half of India’s population has no access to banking services, Dr. K.C. Chakrabarty, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India had said on Nov. 27.
The very purpose of VITALINFO is to provide a platform for wider dissemination of updated information related to and happening of events in and around RBI.
No comments:
Post a Comment