Valley Chai

today’s Times of India (very much like San Jose Mercury News in content and coverage) front page carried a very interesting article about how the reserve bank of india will issue guidelines for payments through a mobile phones. since their e-paper is so pathetic, i have copied and pasted the article below (sorry TOI).

New Delhi: You can soon make your payments through your mobile phone rather than using a credit card or debit card. The Reserve Bank of India, in its annual policy statement on Tuesday, said it was formulating the guidelines for a payment system using mobile phones. RBI is in discussions with banks, service providers and industry bodies to develop the payment system. The bank said the draft guidelines would be placed on its website by June 15.

The reach of mobile phones in India has been increasing rapidly. There are about 250 million mobile phone connections in the country. This is much larger than the number of credit card holders at around 10 million. Therefore, use of the mobile for payments is being considered for quite some time. “The rapid expansion of this mode of communication has thrown up a new delivery channel for banks,’’ RBI said in the policy statement.

Many countries have adopted the mobile phone as a mode of delivery to spread the reach of the banking facility to remote parts. The statement said: “This channel facilitates small value payments to merchants, utility service providers and the like and money transfer at a low cost.’’

A senior banker, who has studied the system, said a person can access his bank account through his mobile phone. He can also transfer money from his account to another person’s account. He said that later, the mobile phone could also be used as a charge card. In this you can load a certain amount of money in your chip and make payments.

with standards-minded indians that aren’t too much into bending the rules, this ‘guideline’ from an undisputed higher authority in indian financial system might just be the catalyst to spur the mobile payment market.

but check this out: with a “mobile phone” you can already take photos, shoot a video, play games, listen to music, check email, get directions, organize calendar, watch videos, use as a vanity mirror. its a a sidekick, a travel partner and a concierge. people boast the magic pattens of numbers in their phone numbers. the speed-dial is a reflection of our proximity to our social/family circles. it’s a style statement and status symbol. it’s where you bury your head in uncomfortable situations. it’s what you twiddle when you are stressed out.

there was an ad for the ambika agarbatti brand a few years ago, which goes ‘this agarbatti is the bridge between the god and the devotee’. well, it the mobile phone now. check out the 59994 that allows you to send an SMS message to Sai baba of Shridi using keyword space .  the SMS’es are placed in the temple wish box connecting all devotees, around India through SMS.

it looks like very soon, we’ll be calling it our wallet. may even be your belt a buckle, heh!
with all that, can you really call it a phone? case in point, we don’t call a blackberry a phone, do we? what it’s place in our lives?

here’s a thought - there was once a time, when i was a student, we used to place our books near the pooja area during the Vinayaka Chaturthi (ganesh chaturthi for some) ceremony. it probably symbolizes blessing of the tools of our trade. we then gradually moved to placing our computer. may be this time around, it’ll be my blackberry.