—J.S. Sarma (pictured, right), a member of the Telecom Disputes Settlement And Appellate Tribunal, will likely be announced as the next chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Business Standard reports. Sarma was not among the 13 candidates who were originally shortlisted by the selection panel. BS columnist Sunil…

Mobile payment service provider Obopay and Nobel Prize winning Dr. Yunus’s micro-finance firm Grameen Solutions, have tied up for a mobile banking initiative. The Bank A Billion initiative proposes to bring banking services to a billion of the world’s poorest people by 2018. The initiative will start initially in Mumbai…

The Reserve Bank of India has asked banks to keep their mobile payment services on holds until final guidelines are issued. However, mobile alerts for credit/debit, balance enquiry and other are service in the nature of providing information will be continued to be made available reports BS. Importantly, all mobile-based…

Just when you thought you knew all the usual suspects. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Adwords has launched its netbanking service and tied up with DirecPay, a subsidary of BCCL’s Timesofmoney. The option list for Netbanking currently features only eight banks supported by Direcpay (full list here). Some digging reveals DirecPay has…

The Reserve Bank of India has issued draft guidelines on mobile payments, a few highlights from the 12 page document below: Mobile Payment has been defined as ‘information exchange between a bank and its customers for financial transactions through the use of mobile phones. Mobile payment involves debit/credit to a…

Paymate has raised $9 million (Approx Rs 38.5 Crore) in series B funding from Mayfield Fund and existing investors Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Buyers and Sherpalo Ventures. Nikhil Khatau, MD of Mayfield Advisors will join the board. Amount of stake sold remains undisclosed although BS states Ajay Adiseshann, founder and…

Tanla, an Indian provider of mobile services, said it acquired an 85 percent stake in Openbit, a Finland-based mobile payment software company for $15.8 million in cash (Euro 12 Million)reports IDG via NetworkWorld. The remaining 15 percent of the company, currently held by Openbit’s management, will be purchased in two…

Tata Indicom and Paymate have tied up to provide Indicom subscribers with flight ticketing services. The agreement is currently limited to domestic air tickets. Paymate has also partnered with Kingfisher for an SMS based ticketing service says thisET report. Nikhil adds: Will there be such a thing as exclusivity in…

—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.…

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…

Indian mobile service provider, Airtel, is working on launching a new value-added service that will enable payments via a mobile phone. The company is already in discussions with a few banks and technology partners to support this system. Speaking on the sidelines of a press conference, Atul Bindal, group chief…