Banking is truly going mobile. Following SBI’s announcement on its foundation day to venture into the sphere of mobile banking, Bank of India and Union Bank of India are also walking the same path. This breakthrough in banking comes after the Reserve Bank of India granted permission to banks for the transfer of funds across mobile-phone service providers. Following this directive, many more banks are expected to join the above mentioned public sector banks.

Mobile banking isn’t a new endeavour for the private sector banks; however, it’s been introduced for the first time by public sector banks. SBI, UBI and Bol will be the first 3 public sector banks to come up with mobile banking solutions. State Bank claims it’s in the final stage and will roll out M-Banking in late July. Bank of India and Union Bank of India will also be unveiling their services by July end.

SBI, on its part has already partnered a technological service provider, Spanco Systems to help them with the whole set up. It is also said to have partnered with many service providers to ensure a trouble free service for 1.3 crore customers.

RBI had recently passed guidelines, which would require certain changes in the existing network of mobile banking being offered by private sector banks too. One of the most important guideline to be followed while mobile banking is that, customers with any mobile network should be in a position to request the services. This would enable fund transfers from account in one bank to some other account, which might be in the same or any other bank, on a real time basis irrespective of the mobile network.

This initiative has been taken by RBI to make banking more helpful and simpler. This would also save on time, as it would reduce the visits to the banks.