—PayMate becomes the second Indian mobile payment co to enter Sri Lanka: the company has tied up with Bank of Ceylon (BOC) for enabling bill payments - electricity, water and phone bills - via SMS. Paymate intends to grow its merchant network in the island nation in the coming weeks. Paymate has partnered with Fortunaglobal in Sri Lanka. [via release] Prior to Paymate, MChek had tied up with Dialog and NDB Bank.

SEE ALSO: RBI To Finalize Regulatory Framework For Internet And Mobile Banking Soon

—Barclays Bank has launched Mobile Banking, called “Hello Money”, entirely on the USSD platform, so it doesn’t require GPRS and SMS. I’m not a Barclays customer (though they representatives do call me quite often), but I did give the service a go by dialing *598*#. The service is available in Hindi and English, but there’s a problem - they’re charging customers Rs. 30 per month, and available only on Airtel, Voda and Idea networks.