Telecommunication is the second largest industry in India with over a million people using mobile phones for various personal as well as business usages. Taking this into consideration, My Mobile Payments Limited (MMPL) – a mobile payment system provider started offering a unique plan to subscribers where they can make any kind of payment transaction through their mobile phones by using a service – Money on Mobile (MoM).

In an exclusive interview with ITBizFocus.com, Shashank Joshi, Managing Director of MMPL, shares his experience on implementing this m-payment system in the Indian market.

MoM is a flexible mobile wallet service

• · Can you share your experience in the mobile commerce and mobile payment space in India?

Eighteen years of professional experience in the IT and ITES industries – handling outsourcing, transition and management consulting helped me, to a large extent, lead MMPL’s core mobile payment business and leverage opportunities in the emerging markets. When I came back from the US nearly 6 years back and I started this project, we were in a way a pioneer in the space because the usage of mobile device was still restricted to a few hands. In the US, however, it was already a widespread practice. But today, it would be hard to find people in India going around without a cell phone. I would definitely say that the telecommunication sector, being one of the largest in the country, has tremendous scope for MoM. Looking at the status of the mobile payment market in India, our expectation has increased a lot and we hope to run ahead of our peers soon.

• · What are the key challenges in this space?

The biggest challenge we faced is educating the customers about the entire gamut of our services. As I  said earlier, when we started the concept of mobile payment system in India, it was not yet in the market, unlike in the US and several other markets. Therefore, winning the trust of customers was difficult and establishing our brand in the Indian market was challenging those days. Gradually, with the increased usage of mobile phones, we started to overcome these challenges.

• · Tell us about something about your Money on Mobile service.

MoM is a flexible mobile wallet service allowing consumers to deal with any kind of DTH account through which you can purchase air, bus, movie tickets anytime through mobile phones. The subscribers can avail the service from anywhere as the service operates independently. The instant payment opportunity is an added incentive. MoM offers your business to be available to your customers 24×7 and you can run your payment network along with financial transactions with utmost security. The unique cross-selling opportunities have made MoM the single largest platform to connect millions of customers in no time.

· What kind of businesses do your target?

MoM is an excellent opportunity and we have a very customer friendly approach. Both large companies and Indian SMEs can equally benefit from our initiative. However, talking about the targeted section, it is actually the urban as well as the semi-urban SMEs. We aimed to give the convenience of Simplified Mobile Payments to our customer. Hence, our distributors are reaching out to every mobile subscriber in India emphasizing especially on the mid market segment. This is an exciting as well as a new business horizon, providing brilliant opportunity to the customers to carry on any types of necessary payment through MoM services. Whether businesses or individuals – one should use it and enjoy the facility for easy working.

• · What is the roadmap of your company in the next 2-3 years?

We have launched our products in few of the Indian states and have gained much recognition. However, we are planning to expand in the South East Asian market as well as Middle East. We are even doing our research in London. There is a long way to go and we are confident enough about our success in the coming years.