Mobile remittance facility has finally been launched in India. After doing wonders in emerging nations like Kenya and Philippines, it has been incorporated in India. The facility would permit real time and seamless fund transfer facility from one account to another using mobile phone.

The service called nterbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS) was inaugurated by Reserve Bank Deputy Governor, Shyamala Gopinath. It initially has major banks like State Bank of India and ICICI Bank in the process.

Gopinath said IMPS has the ability to change the retail payment scenario of India where there are 600 million mobile subscribers and 300 million bank accounts.

The settlement agency in this facility will be National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which is the resultant of promotion by 10 banks. It will facilitate in giving back end support for the system to be active.

"This is the first-of-a-kind system in the country and the real power would be when it starts delivering in the rural areas," NPCI's Chief Executive, A P Hota said.

To be able to install this service, a person has to obtain his mobile money ID (MMID) from the bank which will be acting as his ID for mobile transactions.

A special application will thus be installed by the bank in his mobile using which remittance can be done. Lower end mobiles which do not support application installation, the remittance can be done through SMS also.