Mobile payments from Reliance and HDFC Bank
Reliance Communications (RCom) and HDFC Bank have come together to offer Reliance mPay credit card with HDFC Bank. This is India’s first virtual credit card to Reliance Mobile users across India, wherein the Reliance Mobile is the credit card and mobile number is the credit card number.
An HDFC Bank customer can now shop using his Reliance Mobile and make payment without disclosing the details of his credit card.
The Reliance mPay credit card with HDFC Bank is virtual in nature and no physical plastic will be issued. The service will be available to Reliance Mobile users who are using HDFC Bank credit cards. The user can use their Reliance mPay credit card with HDFC Bank at any merchant establishments that accept payment via Reliance mPay.
At this point I am not sure how many merchants have started accepting such arrangements as yet.
The HDFC Bank will authenticate all the information with RCom, which will be used to initiate and authorize all the payments using the customer’s mobile handset. Thus, there is no card number, Card Verification Value (CVV) or expiry date, which the customer has to enter with Reliance mPay service.
There is no financial risk to the customer in case of loss of mobile phone as the use of the Reliance mPay is PIN protected. To use the service and make any payment, the customer will have to use the PIN (issued to the customer at the time of issue of this virtual credit card). As all the transactions are initiated using the mobile number (to which the Reliance mPay service is issued), there is no risk of card skimming, card compromise on the Internet etc thereby ensuring no misuse on the Internet.
