BillDesk To Boost Mobile Billing In India

Taking a cue from the popularity of online payment of bills, Indian online payment facilitator, BillDesk, is all set to make mobile billing compete with its online counterpart. The flagship brand of IndiaIdeas.com Ltd had, infact, introduced billing and payments through mobile phones in 2002, but the service had not taken off as expected. Now, BillDesk is gearing up for collaborations with more banks and mobile service providers to kickstart the trend in the country. Citibank and Hutch are some of the current mobile billers.

Established by M.N. Srinivasu, Ajay Kaushal and Karthik Ganapathy in 2000, BillDesk delivers and manages specialized electronic payments solutions of various markets including banking, telecom, insurance, utilities and financial services.

According to statistics, Online payments will increase to 1.8 million by 2007 from a mere 0.3 million in 2005-06. Among those who make use of the online payments facility, 73 percent use it to pay cell phone bills and 58 percent for electricity bills, followed by those paying insurance (42 percent) and Internet access bills (36 percent). 27 percent paid for their magazine subscription online.