It’s super-phone!
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
For instance, it can help you transfer money, withdraw it, keep a ready balance on tap (ie go shopping), and so on. In other words, it can be like a credit/debit card, or a bank. It is easy to use because all that is required is to swipe it close to another attachment. It is cheap because the cost of a transaction is the price of a short message on the mobile network. It is presumably safe because of the encryption technologies that are used. And it can be near universal in its reach because, very soon, more Indians will have mobile phones than bank accounts. It is simplistic, and often delusional, to seek quick technological fixes for complex social, economic and organisational challenges.
Still, the prospects held out for making life easier for millions because of the rapid spread of mobile phones (150m, at last count) are exciting – especially when you compare that figure with some other numbers. India?s largest bank has about 10,000 branches. The post office network has over 100,000 offices. And the country has some 15m people who own and use credit cards. In short, there is no network of any kind that can count up to 150m, or anything remotely approaching that number.
The exciting prospect being held out now, as three reports in Business Standard this past week have spelt out, is that a mobile phone need not just be an instrument to help you talk to someone at the other end of the city, country or world. It can be a tool for doing many other things as well, if combined with other technologies that have now been developed and are being tested for their operational usefulness in real-life situations.
For instance, it can help you transfer money, withdraw it, keep a ready balance on tap (ie go shopping), and so on. In other words, it can be like a credit/debit card, or a bank. It is easy to use because all that is required is to swipe it close to another attachment. It is cheap because the cost of a transaction is the price of a short message on the mobile network. It is presumably safe because of the encryption technologies that are used. And it can be near universal in its reach because, very soon, more Indians will have mobile phones than bank accounts.
The benefits are obvious, too. The post office charges as much as 5 per cent for transferring money via money order to a remote village, and the money can take weeks to reach. Western Union may charge less for remitting money from Dubai to a Gujarat village, but neither can compete with the cost that a mobile phone enables. Nor can they compete with its speed (instant transfer), and convenience – since mobile phone companies have agents everywhere who have a store of cash because they are taking it from customers. If there are six million Indians in West Asia who send money home periodically, and may sometimes need to transfer it to meet a family emergency back home, think of the convenience.
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