Tech Shout!

This is the age in which plastic money (credit cards) has replaced the need to carry cash, but now it seems India has moved on, as a single SMS is all one would need to foot their shopping bills. Leading mobile commerce company PayMate, has just introduced a voice and SMS-based mobile payment solution, which eliminates the need for customers to carry cash or even a credit card while out shopping.

Nowadays, there have been a large number of credit card frauds that have come to the forefront, and thus customers are unsure and insecure while using their credit cards. Using your credit cards for point of sale transactions is surely not the safest way to shop anymore.

As a first step toward this, PayMate has tied up with Citibank, as well as with retail establishments like Future Bazaar, Planet M, CRS Health and Gold Cabs, in an effort to offer this offline payment solution to the public.

Here is how PayMate works in India. Basically the customer, the customer’s bank as well as merchant establishments have to be registered with PayMate. Once a customer has finished shopping, the merchant sends his or her bill to the PayMate data centre through the Internet, EDC machine or even through a mobile or landline phone.

Following this, the data centre sends the customer an SMS query or even an automated call asking the customer to confirm whether he wishes to pay the bill amount.

The procedure for the customer is also very simple. He has to send an SMS saying “Yes”, after which PayMate communicates with the customer’s bank, which in turn debits the bill amount to the merchant.

Something that needs to be pointed out here is that this transaction does not share any sensitive credit card details or personal information. So it is a very safe method of transacting. Every SMS that is sent in by a customer has to be accompanied by his personal identification number and an alpha code, which happens to be unique to that transaction only.

“We would like to initially focus on roping in more number of merchant establishments while tying up with more private and public sector banks,” PayMate founder and managing director Ajay Adiseshan told the media. He said he expected to add upto 30,000 establishments offering the service in the next couple of years.

This mobile payment service was actually launched in July, 2006 by PayMate together with Citibank.