Mobile payment, transactions to touch $350-bn by 2015: study

Mobile phones are now poised to usher in mobile money as an everyday form of currency in India, with $350 billion of payments and banking transactions flowing through them by 2015.

However, mobile money will not be a large generator of fees for telecom operators, as the total fee pool of $4.5 billion will be split across several entities, according to a study,  The Rush to Mobile Money: Madness or Master Stroke, by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The payments over mobile include government transactions, point of sales and bill payments, banking transactions, remittances and business payments, BCG, a global management consulting firm and advisor on business strategy, said in its report.

This compares with just over $235 billion of annual credit and debit card transactions in India today, a figure dominated by around $215 billion of cash withdrawals at ATMs.

By 2015, $40 billion would be from government payments, including disbursements under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

The Act is a job guarantee scheme that aims to enhance livelihood of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage-employment in a financial year to a rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.