Take a minute to look into your wallet and just check the amount of credit cards and debit cards you carry in it. Along with your wallet every day you also carry a fear of misplacing your cards in it. Will the day ever come when you can step out leaving your heavy wallets at home and yet shop & dine? How would you feel if instead of fumbling through a wallet for your credit cards, coupons, you could simply use your smartphone to pay your bills? Well, the good news is that the days are already here! With ‘airtel money’ you can routinely leave the house every day without your leather wallet and can still pay for your utility bills, broadband, telecom and toll recharges, e-ticketing , dining and shopping.
Launched amidst great anticipation, airtel money is a mobile-based payment and remittance solution, which provides an opportunity to cater to those 90% of the 250 million Indian consumers, who do not hold bank accounts and use cash to pay for their daily needs. It is a trustworthy, secure, fast and cost effective mobile wallet service that lets you make your payments without standing in a queue and transfer money across the country. Ultimately airtel money will be able to benefit anyone who holds a mobile phone capable of using it.
HOW IT WORKS?
airtel money works like a prepaid account on your mobile phone. One can deposit money (called ‘loading cash’) on to their airtel money account at any airtel money retailer or through the Web using net banking, credit and debit cards, and use this balance to pay for various products and services or to transfer money through a simple menu on the phone. What’s more - customers using airtel money are offered exclusive discounts and offers at various airtel money merchant outlets.
There are basically three kinds of accounts that a customer can avail:
a) Express account - Created instantly with minimum details of the customer.
b) Power account - Advanced account that is ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) compliant.
c) Super account - No-frills savings account of Axis Bank on the airtel money platform called ‘airtel money Super Account powered by Axis Bank’. This account offers customers banking transactions including cash deposits, money transfer, and withdrawal and even allows customers to earn interest.
To begin with, savings, remittance and payment solutions are provided in the top four remittance corridors involving Delhi and Mumbai on the sending side and Bihar and East UP on the receiving side. Thereafter these services may be extended to other remittance corridors in the country.
HOW TO REGISTER FOR ‘airtel money’
One can register for the ‘Express Account’ by dialing *400# from the Airtel mobile and register by providing basic information. For a ‘Power Account’, a customer has to visit the nearest authorized airtel money outlet or Airtel relationship centre and fill a simple form and submit a photograph and a copy of the identity & address proof. Post KYC verification, the power account gets activated.
HOW SECURE IS YOUR MONEY?
The transmission between your mobile phone handset and the server is highly secure and ensure highest security standards. When you register for airtel money, you get a 4-digit mobile personal identification number (mPIN), which you are required to change within 48 hours to a secret 4-digit mPIN known only to you. The mPIN is subsequently required to authorize all your financial transactions and to get any account information. The mPIN is not stored anywhere on the phone or on any server, so it is independent of any malware attacks on handsets. Therefore, your money will always be safe even if you accidentally lose your phone or even if your device is attacked, so long as you have not disclosed your mPIN to anyone.
Available across 800 cities in India, airtel money is continuing to gain traction and has begun to receive customer acceptance. As of now it acquires 42% customer market share of the PPI (pre-paid payment instruments) industry. With the passage of time we are hopeful that airtel money will enable various mobile-based commerce services to reach customers in deeper pockets of the country
