The National Payments Corporation of India, which handles retail payments all across the country, has now come up with a new service for cashless payments.

Before we proceed, let’s consider a few situations which, i believe all of us would have experienced at some point or the other:

• You are out with your friends and at the end, everyone starts pitching in money and starts grappling with change, also creating an embarrassing scene.
• Students in hostels have their money stolen too many times and face problems.
• You are talking on the phone and you run out of prepaid balance.
• Your friend calls from another part of town/country and is in dire need of cash at 4 am in the morning.

IMPS (Inter-Bank Mobile Payments Service), allows people to send money from one account (sender) to another account (receiver) within seconds just by using a mobile handset. Moreover, any mobile handset ranging from the simple Nokia 1100 to a high end Nokia N8 may be used. It even works on Android, iPhone, Windows and any other mobile phone. The service can work over GPRS/ TEXT MESSAGES/USSD/WAP, whichever the user may prefer.
So if one person pays for the lunch, rest can transfer money directly into his account and that too instantly.

IMPS is not just restricted to transfers. You can even pay for your coffee or your vegetables instantly by transferring money from your mobile.

All a user needs to do to send money is, open the mobile application, enter the payee (receiver) Mobile number, the MMID, the amount to be transferred, the MPIN (password akin to ATM PIN) and then hit SEND.

MMID is assigned to the user by the bank when he registers himself as a mobile banking customer with his bank. The MMID is basically a 7 digit number consisting of a 4 digit NBIN (national bank identification) and a 3 digit MAS (mobile account selector).

The users mobile number and the MMID together form a 17 digit unique number that identifies the account. Since there are 2 parameters (Mobile no. and the MMID), typo errors are eliminated, ie. , entering a wrong mobile number or MMID will not lead to your money getting transferred to another account. Also, to receive money a person DOES NOT have to reveal any account details.

If you are a Sender (To send money)

1. Login to the application and select the IMPS option or use the SMS facility in your mobile if your bank provides IMPS on SMS,
2. Get Beneficiary Mobile number and MMID,
3. Enter Beneficiary Mobile number, beneficiary MMID, Amount and your MPIN and send,
4. Await confirmation SMS for the debit in your account and credit in beneficiary account,
5. Note the transaction reference number for any future query.

If you are a receiver (To receive money)

1. Share your Mobile number and MMID with the remitter.
2. Ask the remitter to send money using your Mobile number and MMID.
3. Check the confirmation SMS for credit to your account from the remitter.
4. Note the transaction reference number for any future query.
5. The best part about this service is that the money transfer takes place within a few seconds, i.e. it’s INSTANT and it works on holidays even at midnight!

This service is free of cost for the consumers.Only pre-requisites for this service is for a person to have a bank account and a mobile handset, which is linked to his account and activate mobile banking (if you are a sender). The registration process in some banks for mobile banking is as simple as sending a text message to the banks short/long code and the user details are generated.

The key features of this service are

• Instant interbank fund transfers
• 24 x 7 x 365 availability
• No sharing of bank account details
• Credit and debit confirmations to sender and receiver
• Simple & easy to use
• Time & cost saving
• Safe & secure

NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India) is an organization formed under Reserve Bank of India and chaired by Mr Narayan Murthy. NPCI has services such as CTS (Check Truncation System, FI (Financial Inclusion), UIDAI (Aadhaar Card), NFS (National Financial Switch), etc. NPCI focuses on building customer friendly electronic retail payment systems.