To get the mobile banking initiative off the ground, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has put across draft guidelines for public comment on its website. According to the new guidelines, the RBI has said that a ?per transaction? limit of Rs 2500/- shall be imposed on all mobile banking transactions subject to an overall cap of Rs. 5000/- per day, per customer.
Banks may also put in place monthly transaction limit depending on the bank?s own risk perception of the customer, said RBI in its draft guidelines on Friday.The central bank has made it clear that only banks which have implemented core banking solutions would be permitted to provide mobile banking services.
The long term goal of mobile banking framework in India would be to enable funds transfer from account in one bank to any other account in the same or any other bank on a real time basis irrespective of the mobile network a customer has subscribed to.
This would require inter-operability between mobile banking service providers and banks and development of a host of message formats. To ensure inter-operability between banks, and between their mobile banking service providers, banks shall adopt message formats like ISO 8583, with suitable modification to address specific needs
RBI has said that only banks which are licensed and supervised in India and have a physical presence in India will be permitted to offer mobile banking services.
The services shall be restricted only to customers of banks and holders of debit/credit cards issued as per the extant RBI guidelines. Only Indian Rupee based domestic services shall be provided. Use of mobile banking services for cross border transfers is strictly prohibited.
Banks may also use the services of Business Correspondent appointed in compliance with RBI guidelines, for extending this facility to their customers, the RBI said.
The guidelines issued by Reserve Bank on ?Know Your Customer (KYC)?, ?Anti Money Laundering (AML)? and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) from time to time would be applicable to mobile based banking services also.
Banks shall file Suspected Transaction Report (STR) to Financial Intelligence Unit ? India (FID-IND) for mobile banking transactions as in the case of normal banking transactions
The banks shall put in place a system of document based registration with mandatory physical presence of their customers, before commencing mobile banking service.
On registration of the customer, the full details of the Terms and Conditions of the service offered shall be communicated to the customer. Information Security is most critical to the business of mobile banking services and its underlying operations. Therefore, technology used for mobile banking must be secure and should ensure confidentiality, integrity, authenticity and non-repudiability.
