22 Jul 2013 07:00
22 July 2013
ICICI Bank and Movida partner on mobile payments service in India
India's largest private sector bank joins Movida, a joint venture between Visa Inc. and Monitise, to launch new ways to help customers pay and buy via mobile phone
Movida, the mobile payments joint venture between Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) and Monitise (LSE: MONI.L), today announced a deal with ICICI Bank, India's largest private sector bank, to utilize Movida's mobile payments service for the Bank's customers.
The service will enable ICICI Bank payment card holders to pay bills, recharge prepaid airtime and buy cinema tickets from their mobile phone, anywhere, anytime. It will be possible to access Movida either through a menu-based USSD mobile technology, or an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) in multiple languages. These options make the service easy to use and are widely available from any type of mobile phone, including basic models.
Soon to be implemented by ICICI Bank for its payment card holders, the service is designed to operate across all mobile networks using any payment card - Visa and non-Visa.
The cardholders will be able to make payments through Movida's secured connection after linking their payment card to their mobile phone number registered with ICICI Bank. Their card account information will be kept secure by a unique PIN number.
Rajiv Sabharwal, Executive Director, ICICI Bank, said: "This tie-up with Movida provides an added facility in an array of mobile payment options that ICICI Bank offers to its customers. We have seen a high level of demand from consumers to use their mobile phones for financial transactions. We are constantly innovating to meet this demand and empower our customers with solutions that offer greater choice and more convenience. This service by Movida will ensure they can get immediate access to a secure and simple solution that can be utilized even without an active internet connection."
Uttam Nayak, Group Country Manager for India & South Asia, Visa, said: "ICICI Bank customers can now use their basic mobile phones, to make payments like telecom recharge and utility bills in a convenient and secure manner. Movida also aligns to the national vision of making India a cashless society. Movida's services combine the strength and robustness of existing infrastructure with the latest mobile payment technology to provide simple, secure services for everyone."
Monitise Group Chief Executive Alastair Lukies said: "India is an extremely dynamic market in which to offer our services, providing the ability to transform the lives of millions of consumers. We've seen a strong commitment from banks in the region to provide relevant payment services to their customers, and are excited to be working with ICICI Bank to make payments truly mobile for its customers."
Naushad Contractor, Movida's President and Head of the Visa-Monitise joint venture in India, stated: "A growing population of more than 1.2 billion coupled with widespread access to a mobile phone, make a strong case for a vast mobile payments opportunity. Mobile payments users spend significantly less time and energy paying their bills, recharging their phones or those of family or friends, or waiting in line to buy tickets to the next blockbuster, because they are able to do it on the go and around the clock."
He also added: "The mobile payment services which will succeed in India are simple, interoperable solutions that solve a real consumer need and can apply to any handset, without the need for a technology upgrade or a new purchase. They must be highly secure, reliable and provided by trusted partners. These are the premises of the Movida solution, and we are delighted to be working with ICICI Bank to provide this service to its customers."
NOTES TO EDITORS
Further information about Movida can be found at http://www.movida.in/
USSD: Unstructured Supplementary Service Data
USSD is a protocol used by GSM cellular telephones to communicate with the service provider's computers. USSD can be used for prepaid callback service, mobile-money services, location-based content services, menu-based information services. USSD messages are up to 182 alphanumeric characters in length. Unlike Short Message Service (SMS) messages, USSD messages create a real-time connection that remains open and allows for a two way exchange of a sequence of data. This makes USSD more responsive than services that use SMS.
With the Movida mobile payments service users are required to punch a simple USSD code sequence (*575#) into the handset to access the service. It means that any handset can be used to access services making it widely available given the pervasiveness of basic handsets in the Indian market.
IVR: Interactive Voice Response
IVR is a technology that allows people to interact with computers using DTMF (Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling) tones, which the caller punches into the phone call via their phone keypad. The caller enters the relevant response numbers in response to a voice prompt from Movida on the phone call. This is widely used and understood technology in India and beyond.
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About Movida India Pvt. Ltd
Movida India Pvt. Ltd. is a 50:50 Joint Venture between Visa (NYSE: V) and Monitise (LSE: MONI.L) that establishes mobile handsets as the core device for making electronic payments, Movida works primarily with financial institutions and mobile service operators to provide services to consumers across India and epitomizes the fundamental technologies of Visa and Monitise to deliver a fast, reliable, secure, and simple service using existing technologies and networks. Movida aims to revolutionise mobile based payment options by providing cost effective and secure solutions that are easy to implement for Movida's clients, and are easy to use and secure for consumers. For details please visit www.movida.in
About ICICI Bank
ICICI Bank Limited (NYSE:IBN) is India's largest private sector bank and the second largest bank in the country, with consolidated total assets of US$ 124 billion at March 31, 2013. ICICI Bank's subsidiaries include India's leading private sector insurance companies and among its largest securities brokerage firms, mutual funds and private equity firms. ICICI Bank's presence currently spans 19 countries, including India.
About Visa
Visa is a global payments technology company that connects consumers, businesses, financial institutions, and governments in more than 200 countries and territories to fast, secure and reliable electronic payments. We operate one of the world's most advanced processing networks - VisaNet - that is capable of handling more than 30,000 transaction messages a second, with fraud protection for consumers and assured payment for merchants. Visa is not a bank and does not issue cards, extend credit or set rates and fees for consumers. Visa's innovations, however, enable its financial institution customers to offer consumers more choices: pay now with debit, ahead of time with prepaid or later with credit products. For more information, visit corporate.visa.com
About Monitise
Monitise (LSE: MONI) is a world leader in Mobile Money - banking, paying and buying with a mobile device. Leading banks, payments companies, retailers and mobile networks utilise Monitise's technology platforms and services to securely connect people with their money. Already over 20 million consumers benefit from our patented technology to 'bank anywhere', 'pay anyone' and 'buy anything' accounting for over $30 billion of payments, purchases and transfers annually. More information is available at www.monitise.com
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