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Mobile Payment Roundup: Paymate-Sri Lanka; Barclays - USSD Based Services

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—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.

—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.

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Nikhil Pahwa Mar 3, 2008 11:10 AM ET
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Posted In: E-Commerce, Payment Systems

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  • mutisya

    hi richard
    read your comments on ussd technology, i agree that its the best available tech. however some telcom companies are not willing to share this tec. i am in Nairobi kenya and money transfer is big. i am also very interested in a start up, if you think business, plz mail to me

  • Richard Mak

    USSD is a GSM technology, so this service cannot be implemented in CDMA.  Having said that, implementation of SMS-based mobile payment solutions is not too much different from a USSD based solution in GSM.

  • Hello,
    The service and technology is nice.
    But what about CDMA.
    Will that work on cdma.
    If it is not working on CDMA than i think it will be a failure.

  • Adil

    If I am not a Barclays customer, but still try out the service by dialling *598*1#, will the balance in my cellphone reduce by Rs.30?

    In other words, is Rs. 30 charged to the bank account by the bank, or to the cell phone by the service provider?

  • suresh

    Hi

    Fund transfer is available mobile to mobile and hello money is indeed low cost at Re 1 per day.Currently it is available on Airtel,Vodafone and Idea on all handsets.

    You can do mobile top up instantly.

    You must try it out.It is cool!!

  • ashish

    rite its *598*1# & i works beauifully on Nokia 1100 also.. its truly some unique technology

  • Sunil

    *598*# is not working… I checked the reports - think its *598*1#

    I have a BPL though so could not see it!

  • asif

    I think if the service is available in as cheap as rs 30 or Rs 1 per day, it is a fantastic proposition. But the security issue should be addressed properly and and fundtransfer should happen directly from mobile to mobile.
    If this happens i will surely apply for Barclays services.

    BTW USSD is termed as the best technology to for mobile banking service.

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