Soon the mCommerce is going to be reality shock for banking and boon for cellular industry. After mChq from ICICI and Airtel, Paymate India is planning to offer m-commerce services targeted at top restaurants. Mumbai will be the test bed for this service where the services will be operational in next 20-45 days. Initially it will be targeted up-market restaurants where the customer will be more tech savvy and hence willing to opt the service. Service will be used by users by making a transaction via text messaging. Both credit and debit card transactions can be performed without requiring him to enter the numbers. For this Paymate India has collaborated with Citibank and Euronet to launch the service. To use PayMate, Citibank customers need to sign up for this service with the bank by simply sending 'PayMate' as an SMS to 2484. The customer will be called back and registered for the service following which they can conveniently shop at Rediff, Naukri, Cleartrip, Jeevansaathi and 99 Acres for their products. Once the user registers with his bank to start using the Paymate service, he will be able to start paying bills through the mobile with no additional charges except some premium for SMS. The model is based on the recommendations by Ernst & Young; which provides the security measures for both the bank as well as the customer. Paymate is a spin-off from Coruscant Technologies and it has just received a first round funding of $5 million from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Ram Shriram's Sherpalo Ventures. Paymate India has a substantial addressable market in India, with over 45 million credit/debit cards, 440 million bank accounts and lastly, 100 million mobile subscribers. Considering the addressable market and convenience offered by mobiles it is no longer that debit and credit cards will soon be out of pockets.
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