A committee looking into issues of Internet and mobile banking is expected to submit its report to the Reserve Bank of India in March, following which the central bank will prepare a regulatory framework for the same. There appear to be concerns around authentication of users, reports UNI. Some of these regulations might cover mobile payment systems which the RBI has talked about before, particularly since debit and credit card systems haven’t really taken off - there’s a report here (pdf) at VentureWoods.
In the meantime, several mobile banking and payment solutions have been launched in the past few years - Mchek, Obopay, Paymate, Jigrahak, mobile applications from ICICI Bank, pre-paid cash card services, and mobile money transfer services. I also wonder if, once the regulatory framework is decided, we’ll see the relaunch of the Times of India groups Wallet365, which had to stop operations soon after its launch. One should also see some norms for pre-paid cash cards like Itz Cash and Done Card which are used extensively for online payments.