Barclays launches mobile banking in India

Barclays, a global financial services provider, announced the launch of 'Hello Money', a mobile banking service for its customers. The service will enable Barclays' customers access banking services anytime/anywhere on-the-move through mobile phones.

Barclays customers can now perform account enquiries and financial transactions by simply dialling *598*1#. They can carry out secure banking transactions like fund transfers, bill payments, requests and other banking services without visiting a branch or ATMs.

Upon dialling *598*1#, customers will be guided to the mobile-based menu where they will be able to choose from a number of options and, after they enter the correct Hello Money PIN, they can immediately perform their required transaction on their handsets, said Suresh Gurumani, Director, Retail Banking, Barclays Global Retail and Commercial Banking.

"Barclays Hello Money provides anytime and anywhere access to our customers. This service is unique as it has vast potential with appeal across all segments, taking banking to the unbanked population of over 184 million people in the country," he told a press conference, here.

The service is available on all GSM handsets on the network of Airtel, Vodafone and Idea in 40 cities across the country for a nominal monthly fee of Rs 30. Customers can presently choose between Hindi and English, but Barclays aims to include more languages and extend it to CDMA handsets too.

Existing mobile banking propositions in the market involve several steps like application downloads, remembering SMS codes, and all sorts of numbers and formats that make it inconvenient to use.

Also, the costs for using the services are high as customers are charged for SMS or GPRS subscription every time they use the service. This has posed several hurdles in early adoption of mobile banking and spread of banking services across geographies.

Barclays Hello Money service is also upgradable into other m-commerce services.

Over the last year, Barclays has introduced a number of products to its Indian customers, such as smart budget card, India's first Platinum debit card, 7-year personal loans, and Barclays Premier League card.

To support such initiatives firms like Obopay, mChek, JiGrahak have been innovating with their products to align with the needs of banking consumers. ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank have made significant inroads in this sector already.