StanChart, PayMate in m-commerce deal

Bank customers can buy movie, airline tickets using mobile phones.

Standard Chartered Bank has tied up with PayMate, which has arrangements with 700 establishments across the country, for accepting payments via mobile phones. The UK bank's customers can also book movie and airline tickets and transfer money through cell phones.

PayMate is a mobile payment service in India, which enables online transaction of money via mobile phones to shop for gifts, buy movie and airline tickets, send flowers pay utility bills, subscribe to newspapers and magazines, among other things.

PayMate also has a tie-up with 3,000 online merchants and 100 multiplexes across the country.

C D K Sai Narain, head, consumer transaction, banking and strategic initiatives, Standard Chartered Bank, said, "Mobile as a channel offers a great opportunity for transaction convenience. We have over 300 million mobile connections and its penetration today is across the country and across various segments. We see this channel as a great opportunity. We have the entire product basket in this range "� push-based alerts, pull-based query, mobile commerce and cardless cash withdrawal.''

Cardless cash withdrawal permits the Standard Chartered customers to transfer cash instantaneously to anybody in India within the Standard Chartered network, irrespective of whether the recipient has a Standard Chartered account or not.

To avail of this service, the bank customer has to make a request at the bank ATM to transfer the desired amount to the recipient's mobile number. The customer will immediately receive an order number on a receipt dispensed at the ATM. The recipient's mobile number will receive an SMS with a pin number, which will be required to withdraw the money.

The sender will have to communicate the order number that he has received for the recipient to withdraw the money. To withdraw the cash, the recipient will have to go to a bank ATM and after following the instructions, enter the pin number, order number, mobile number and amount.

On verification by the bank's system, the cash will be dispensed to the recipient. The recipient must withdraw the cash from the ATM within 24 hours of the request being placed and the money is debited from the bank customer's account only when the cash is dispensed.

This service can be availed of free of cost. A customer can withdraw up to Rs 20,000 a day and Rs 10,000 per transaction.

At present, around 70 per cent of the bank's transactions are conducted on alternative channels such as ATMs, phone banking and internet banking.