IAMAI highlights mobile phone utility, next level of mobile telephony

October 12th, 2009

With an objective to highlight the mobile phone utility and the next level of mobile telephony, Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), today organized a national symposium on financial inclusion through mobile phones.

With nearly 440 million subscribers, mobile phones cover nearly 40% of the country’s population. Given the unprecedented coverage, mobile phones are increasingly been seen as agents of socio-economic development – reaching out opportunities to people and places way beyond any other instrument.

“Financial Inclusion and penetration of organized banking among the rural Indian population is a key priority area for an all inclusive growth. There is a huge opportunity in terms of further improving existing set of methodologies for financial transactions. Mobile phones fit into the picture so well, as they could take the financial inclusion initiative to the next level. Mobile payments or financial transactions through mobile devices carry huge importance and relevance for the Indian banking scenario. Government have understood it’s potential and working very aggressively towards enabling this system as penetrative as possible,” said MrR Chandrashekhar, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India while delivering a special address at the event.