The IAMAI Digital Summit ended with a discussion on money…rather - mobile payments. Navin Surya, Executive Director of ITZ Cash took stage and spoke about contactless payment, SIM Toolkits and the need for keeping mobile payments easy - one touch, SMS and voice based. Itz cash is processing Rs.4 crores a day, and its the services that matter. They allow people to donate Rs.5 and Rs.10 to the Siddhi Vinayak Temple.
Ajay Adiseshann, MD of Paymate drew a value chain for payment via Paymate. SMS he told me later, is not going out of fashion - they have the technology for GPRS and other modes of enabling payment, but SMS will remain. Paymate has signed up with 2500 online merchants, including Rediff, Naukri, Jeevansathi, Indiatimes, Makemytrip, TravelMart India, Cleartrip, Future Bazaar and Fabmall. The expanding merchant base will now also include Taj hotels, Shaadi.com, Adlabs multiplexes, Oxford Bookstore and others. CC Avenues will be offering Paymate solutions to their clients as well. In this quarter, they are looking to finalize more merchant alliances before launching a consumer marketing campaign. We’re in no rush, he tells me, and the market is big enough for many more players.
Rahul Chandra of Helion Venture Partners, which has also invested in JiGrahak, a mobile payment company that enables payment via GPRS. He feels that e-commerce currently has greatest potential where there is no physical delivery of goods.

Some of the issues that were raised: SMS is familiar but is it secure? GPRS is more secure, but not utilized. Operators will always be a part of the mobile payment value chain, and will get their cut. There’s a need for standards or guidelines for mobile payments, and there are issues of interoperability.