Reliance, Hdfc Launch India's First Virtual Credit Card

[Arun 795]

19 Feb, 2008, 1651 hrs IST

Press Trust of India

Reliance Communications and HDFC Bank on Tuesday announced the launch of country's first virtual credit card.

The virtual card will do away with the need to physically carry the credit card and would allow mobile phones to double as a payment instrument.

Reliance mobile customers can now participate in the mobile credit card evolution. This is another step towards making mobile commerce a reality in India, Mahesh Prasad, President, Applications Group, Reliance Communications told reporters here.

Presently, the facility would be available to HDFC Bank credit cardholders, who are also Reliance mobile subscribers.

A top bank official said HDFC bank has about 35 lakh cardholders and given that RComm has about 40 per cent market share in the mobile market an estimated 15 lakh people would be able to use the new facility.

The tie-up between the bank and Reliance is not exclusive and over a period of time other banks and other mobile operators would also launch this facility.

It could become a preferred way of making payment in future as it does away with the risks associated with carrying cards and revealing its details at merchant establishments.

Security and convenience are two major benefits of the new facility, he said. "Although HDFC mPay facility is currently available only to the Reliance Mobile phone users, we would in future tie-up with other Indian cellular operators too. Since over 84% of our banking transactions are currently routed through the alternate banking channels, mPay is expected to expand our credit card base across the country.", he added.

The Reliance 'mPay' credit card allows users to make postpaid bill payments, get pre-paid top-up, and pay Reliance Energy monthly electricity bills.

Users don't need to enter a card number or card verification value (CVV) or expiry date to be able to use the 'mPay' service. HDFC Bank would authenticate all the information with RCom, which would then be used to initiate and authorize all payments using customers' mobile handsets.

The service is extended further to allow users book movie- and travel- tickets, make payments at shops and restaurants, and shop on the Internet.

RCom claims there isn't any financial risk involved in the event users lose their mobile phones; the reason being 'mPay' is PIN-protected. To use the service and make payments, customers need to use the same PIN that is issued them at the time of issue of the virtual credit card.

CN Ram, head - information technology, HDFC Bank said, "The mPay platform eliminates the necessity to use a plastic credit card since the mobile handset itself acts as a virtual credit card with no separate card number provided as card holder's mobile number suffices the requisite customer identification details. The new payment concept thus offers hassle free transactions in a more secured environment since there is no need to enter credit card details while making payments. It also thus eliminates the card skimming and related fraud risks."

Internationally, this technology was introduced only a couple of years ago and has been a great success in countries like South Korea, Japan and Philippines, Prasad added.

[Honest 836]

^^^

Wow thats a great news my dear friends. This could be helpful and beneficial to many of us.

Regards.

[kesav 127]

Its a great News......

What will happen in the areas/shops where there is no signal?

How to transact on internet?

[kesav 127]

Here is the official press release

http://www.rcom.co.in/webapp/Communication...tail.jsp?id=292

[carbinem4 2]

THIS IS REALLY COOL

[manishwa 0]

Has anyone used this service?

[situ1962 21]

A very good initiative by reliance.others will follow this sooner or later.