For most of us, the experience of m-commerce (mobile commerce) is restricted to downloading ringtones, caller tones, wallpaper and maybe games - availed of by an estimated one-third of India's 100 million mobile subscribers.
But m-commerce goes far beyond that, and PayMate's mobile payment service wants to see its frontiers pushed in India. How? By allowing users to pay via a text message. Yes, one SMS, and your shopping's done. It works like PayPal, eBay's dollar payment service, but not exactly.
PayMate's service is not limited to a particular mobile operator or technology (it's both GSM and CDMA-enabled), and neither does it require any GPRS connectivity or SIM card upgrades. It's highly versatile.
In fact, the mobile phone as wallet has been a vision around for quite a while. It's just that the labyrinth of backend relationships has taken time.
Making a go of PayMate is mostly a matter of tying up with banks and retailers. To begin with, PayMate has joined hands with Citibank to offer the service to both its credit and debit card customers.
"We are already in talks with 12-14 leading banks to expand our services," says a PayMate executive, "At the same time, we are also signing up a host of retail merchants, both online and physical retail stores, to offer users a wide array of shopping options."
And no, there are no hidden costs. Elaborates Ajay Adiseshann, founder and managing director, PayMate, "The entire transaction and process is governed by the PayMate database and does not require any [bank] staff to attend to phone calls."
The database is secure, he adds, allaying fears of phishing losses (no credit card or bank account number need be put at peril).
Widening the merchant network is an ongoing effort. At the moment, you can shop at Rediff, Naukri and a few other sites. In a country where e-commerce transactions grew to around Rs 1,180 crore (Rs 11.80 billion) in 2005-06, and are slated to rise to Rs 2,300 crore (Rs 23 billion) next year, the potential is enormous.
M-commerce can mint money if the system catches on, feels PayMate. Online retailers and services need a secure payment system, and this could well be the answer.
Adiseshann wants 100 million mobile subscribers, but is aware that critical mass must first be acquired. "We are willing to wait - and remain committed to our goal of being the Visa/Electron of the mobile payment world."
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