The Reserve Bank of India has increased the maximum amount that you can store in your m-wallet (mobile wallet) to Rs 50,000 from current Rs 5,000. It has also relaxed the daily transaction limit for this growing segment.
Through a notification, RBI has announced the move attributing it to “the potential of such mobile-based prepaid instruments for promoting non-cash based transactions and the interest evinced by non-bank (like Mobile operators) entities in promoting these products”.
The success of the m-wallet system in the country can be judged by the fact that of the 39 banks, that were granted approval for mobile banking, 34 banks have launched the mobile banking services.
On an average, 6.8 lakh transactions amounting to 61 crore in a month are settled through this channel.
RBI has also relaxed the daily limit of transaction without the need for end to end Encryption from current Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000. What this basically means is that it will become easier to transfer up to Rs 5,000 daily through your m-wallet account.
The move has come after intense lobbying from banks and other stakeholders like mobile operators, who argued that Rs 5,000 transaction limit is too little to let the m-wallet system grow.
Leading mobile operators Bharti airtel and Vodafone had tied up with SBI and ICICI Bank respectively to offer such facilities to their subscribers. However, only Airtel has so far launched an m-wallet that too in Delhi NCR only. After this relation it is expected that the launches will happen sooner. Idea cellular has also launched an m-wallet service in partnership with Axis bank.