New Delhi: Airtel on Tuesday announced the launch of a whole range of M-Commerce solutions such as Mobile Money Transfer (MMT), postpaid bill payment and prepaid recharge on the mobile phone. It is partnering with ICICI bank, HDFC bank, SBI, Corporation bank and VISA to enable these payments. The solution has been developed by mChek, a leading provider of mobile security and payment solutions. This is the first time in India that Mobile Money transfer will be available.

Airtel has extensively piloted these products across the country and has already 67,000 registered customers for postpaid bill payments with over a hundred thousand transactions running into several crores. In addition, over 17,000 movie tickets have been bought by the customers using this service.

Informing about the benefits of the service, Gopal Vittal, Director Marketing & Communications, Airtel, said, "This first of its kind innovation in India will allow millions of our customers to send money any time, from anywhere to anyone. We see tremendous growth potential for these and many more M-Commerce solutions on the mobile phone in the next few years. Our partnership and alliance led innovation approach that we have consistently followed has allowed us to build a solid ecosystem of banking and solution providers to be first off the block in this very relevant space"

All Airtel mobile customers with credit/debit cards with ICICI bank, HDFC bank, SBI, Corporation bank & VISA, can now pay their postpaid bills instantly. He can also pay for others and recharge for his friends and family, all in the matter of a few minutes.

Further, Mobile Money transfer will empower an Airtel user to transfer money to their family or friends by a click of a button. This spells huge convenience to the customer and has the potential to redefine the benefit of a mobile phone from simply being a device for communication to being a mobile payments device.