ICICI Bank to offer mobile payment services in India through mVisa

The service is based on mVisa, a mobile payment solution from Visa. To start with, ICICI Bank has tied up with 1,500 merchants in Bengaluru.

The solution enables customers to make electronic transactions from their smartphones at traditional stores, ecommerce sites, deliveries made at home, radio taxi and utility bills among others.

Users of Pockets app can make cashless payments from their smartphones using their debit card by scanning an mVisa quick response (QR) code at a merchant location without swiping the card at a terminal. Customers are required to click on the mVisa icon on the home screen of the Pockets app. The app automatically activates the camera in the phone, allowing them to scan the QR code and enter their debit card PIN.

The banks executive director Rajiv Sabharwal said this service will help overcome limitations of low point-of-sale (POS) terminals penetration, adding there are 570 million debit cards in the country and only 1.1 million POS machines available for card payments.