RBI-promoted National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and telecom companies have locked horns over the rollout of mobile banking on basic phones. The bone of contention is the charges telcos would receive from banks. NPCI, headed by former central banker A P Hota, is understood to have offered 10 paise per transaction, while telcos want more, considering the investment and uncertainty over volumes. The stalemate has delayed the introduction of USSD-based mobile payments. USSD stands for unstructured supplementary service data. This is the same technology through which mobile customers can communicate directly with the phone company’s servers and check their balance and subscribe to schemes. NPCI had planned to use this messaging system for mobile banking so that even the most basic phones can be used for secure payments. But telcos are not keen on USSD, also because they have their own plans for a payment system.
TOI
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