Making headway in technology, Sri Lanka's leading state owned bank, the Bank of Ceylon (BOC), the bankers to the nation, and its mobile payment facility Paymate together with Bharti Airtel Lanka has announced the launch of the MCommerce solution to all Airtel subscribers in the island.
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| Exchanging of MoU between Chairman BoC Dr.Gamini Wickremasinghe and CEO Airtel Amali Nanayakkara |
The BOC , introduces customer -oriented schemes from time to time. This time, the bank has launched a unique, easy to operate programme for its over 7.5 million satisfied clients. Well, it is an array of M-Commerce solutions, unveiled for the benifit of people in the island. This customer-centric venture is finalized in alliance with leading mobile phone service provider Bharti Airtel Lanka.
Outlinng details of this venture , Dr. Gamini Wickramasinghe, Chairman, Bank of Ceylon said , "With the changing lifestyles ushered in by the mobile phone over the last few years, a significant opportunity to combine banking and mobile services has arisen. The mobile phone is increasingly becoming the one-stop-shop for customers and a simple and secure service like the BOC Paymate Solution offered over Airtel, provides unparalleled convenience to all our customers".
"We are in the process of introducing a robust and secure MCommerce solution with improved user friendliness, the ability to run on virtually any mobile phone, be mobile operator-independent," Sam Samarasinghe, Bank of Ceylon Deputy General Manager, Product Development and Branches told the Free Hold section of the Sunday Times. "This solution could help the bank in capturing the market leadership in the MCommerce space and would enable us to reach the un-banked communities, more effectively," he added.
These services are available to all customers of the Airtel , enabling them to make instant payments of phone and utility bills, account balance inquiries, mini statements and fund transfers and also, instant post paid account bill payment and pre paid recharge connections, using their BOC account he said. .
This enables 7.5 million Bank of Ceylon customers to access this simple text-based M commerce solution from any handset. Services include instant payments of phone and utility bills, account balance inquiries, mini statements and transfer funds. Mutually exclusive customers of Airtel and Bank of Ceylon can enjoy instant post paid account bill payment and pre paid recharge connections over SMS, he said.
This simple text based platform offers Airtel and Bank of Ceylon customers the convenience of making utility bill payments for water, electricity and telephone along with account balance inquiry, mini statements and fund transfer through an SMS. Additionally, Airtel Recharge facilities as well as postpaid bill-payment facilities are also available to customers over SMS. Bank of Ceylon customers who are already registered with the Airtel network can continue to use their current SIM and enjoy the service over their Airtel mobile. This service does not require any GPRS/ EDGE connectivity or application download as it is an SMS based service which works on any mobile making this service handset-agnostic, and therefore accessible to the entire 7.5 million customer base of Bank of Ceylon, Mr. Samarsinghe revealed.
Amali Nanayakkara, CEO Bharti Airtel Lanka stated "The Airtel mCommerce solution offers all Bank of Ceylon customers the opportunity and convenience of transacting need based services over SMS. Through this co-created initiative to enrich customers of Bank of Ceylon and Airtel we are happy to engineer yet another avenue of service delight while facilitating a paradigm shift in the way customers conduct economic transactions".
Ajay Adiseshann, MD and Founder, PayMate said, "PayMate along with our local partners, Fortuna Global, are excited to bring the first SMS based mobile payment service in a country where mobile penetration is growing rapidly. The potential is enormous considering Airtel is Sri Lanka's fastest growing Mobile Network and Bank of Ceylon is Sri Lanka's largest bank. PayMate's edge over any other m-payment platforms lies not only its convenient, anytime-anywhere utility but also in its incredible simplicity".
Bharti airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd is a subsidiary of Bharti airtel in India and commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka on January 12, 2009. The company now has an aggregate of over 1 million customers. With its network footprint panned out across the country in less than 2 years from launch, airtel has emerged as Sri Lanka's fastest expanding network. Granted a license in 2007, in accordance with the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No. 25 of 1991, it is also a registered company under the Board of Investment in Sri Lanka. Under the license, the company provides digital mobile services to Sri Lanka inclusive of voice telephony, voice mail, data services and GSM based services. All of these services are provided under the airtel brand.
PayMate is a wireless transactions platform provider with a first-of-its-kind mobile payment platform which lets you link your mobile phone to a bank account, credit card or a prepaid account - turning your mobile phone into a secure payment tool to be used anytime, anywhere.
PayMate's hybrid SMS and IVR based transaction platform along with its BREW and j2ME application suite offers unparalleled simplicity making it usable on even the most basic handsets, across all telecom operators. PayMate's list of security certifications includes compliances such as PCI DSS 1.2, PA-DSS 1.2 and Govt. Of India's Cert-in, certifying its systems, processes and infrastructure with banking grade security.
PayMate has operations in USA, UAE, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Africa & Eastern Europe and an ecosystem of over 15,000 merchants offering mobile payments to their customers.
PayMate has tie-ups with over 28 banks including SBI, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Corporation Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland to name a few, and has also tied up with Galileo to offer its 6,000+ agents a remote payment collection solution via mobile. In the US PayMate has partnered with leading transaction service provider-TSYS to offer merchant mobile POS solutions and is steadily foraying into mobile money transfer as part of its inclusive banking roll-outs. |
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