The usage of mobile phones has increased manifold in the country. The current number of mobile phone users stands at 600 million. But as compared to the growth in mobile usage, mobile banking has not flourished to the same extent. There have been only 5% registered users of mobile banking in the past two years of which only 0.05% are active users. These statistics have been provided by global consultancy, Deloitte.

The main reason why mobile banking still lags behind in India has been the lack of integration between banks and mobile phone operators along with less lucrative revenue model for banks.

According to Sanjeev Patel, head and executive vice-president, direct banking channels, HDFC Bank, "The transactions in mobile banking are relatively miniscule as compared to other established channels such as internet and ATM. Thus standalone costs for the mobile banking transactions are fairly high."

Although mobile banking would be cheaper to banks than the conventional branch banking system, Sachin Sondhi, senior director, Deloitte says, "Acquisition of customers remains a major issue for banks so that they can scale up their model and make money out of mobile banking."

It is expected that the modified business correspondent model and UID enabled bank accounts would act as path changers for the mobile banking business.