The Inter Ministerial Group (IMG) constituted by the Cabinet Secretary in 2009 to suggest ways of improving mobile banking in the country, where only 26 per cent of people have bank accounts, has submitted its recommendation.

The committee has recommended that the cap on daily mobile transaction be increased from the current Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000. In its recommendation the IMG has suggested a 2 per cent commission per transaction, to be collected from the customer.

Banks, in turn, must pay the telco a minimum of Rs 2.25 per transaction or 1.4 per cent of the total amount which should be gradually reduced to 1 per cent over five years.

If the telco were to set up mini ATMs (retail outlets where people can also withdraw cash) then banks must pay the telco a minimum of Rs 3 per transaction or 2.25 per cent of the amount.

The committee has recommended that telecom operators be allowed to work with different banks in different areas, but that no retail outlet should be allowed to service two different banks.

When mobile banking services are launched, any cell phone customer will be able to create a ‘mobile linked no frills’ account to deposit, withdraw and transfer money. He will execute these transactions through a mobile based m-PIN system or through micro ATMs run by telecom service providers.

At present, only customers who have a bank branch within 30 km of where they live can avail mobile banking facilities. The committee has recommended a relaxation of this norm to allow every one with a mobile connection to benefit from mobile banking.

RBI in its earlier guidelines had allowed banks to employ telecom operators as business correspondents, thus enabling banks to exploit the pre existing, dense telecom retail and wireless network particularly in far flung regions. This move by the RBI LED to joint ventures like the recently announced SBI-Airtel and ICICI-Vodafone mobile banking partnerships.

If the recommendation by the Inter Ministerial Group is accepted, it will pave the way for mobile banking to reach each mobile user in the country. With the total number of mobile connections crossing 700 million, mobile banking will bring in millions into banking and will also bring revenue for banks and telecom operators.

Facebook has posted on its blog that it will allow third party App developers access to users’ home addresses and cell phone numbers.

On the surface it appears that data will be accessed by third party developers only if users agree to share it. While installing a new app, users are asked whether they are comfortable with sharing information, but in their hurry to install the app, they often overlook the conditions put forward by the developers and give their consent without considering the implications of their actions.

There are already rogue applications galore on Facebook, spamming users in multiple ways. Some of these get people to share their phone numbers by asking them to sign up for a service. The process of accessing personal information will become easier than ever for developers who may then sell the data thus collected to SMS marketing and cold calling companies.

Users can make sure their data is not compromised by making their Facebook profile more private. Some users defend Facebook saying the information may be used for delivering purchased items without websites having to bother users for their address time and again.

The average number of apps downloaded for every iOS device sold stands at 60 whereas in 2008 the figure stood at 10.

These numbers were revealed in a survey conducted by Asymco, a company led by a former Nokia employee. The Apple App store has served about 10 billion app downloads, which seem to be more in demand than the music on iTunes is.

Asymco has found out that about 30 million apps are downloaded every day. The 60 apps per device average was arrived at by dividing total apps downloaded by total number of iOS devices that exist. The number of apps per device may actually be more because all the iPhones and iPods ever sold cannot still be in circulation.

With time, more devices will be sold, and as a result more apps will be downloaded. With music downloads, Apple reached the ten billion mark in 67 months, whereas with apps it is close to that figure in almost half the time, in only 31 months.

The apps on the iPhone or other iOS devices may work to lock the customers within the Apple ecosystem because the prospect of getting all the apps again may deter customers from moving to other platforms such as Android or Windows Phone 7.

Most of us in India face a regular hassle of having to haggle with the auto rickshaw driver over the fare. Most of the time, auto drivers refuse to go by meter saying that the meter is not working; and often even if they do agree to go by meter, the meter has been tampered with.

Here is a solution from Kochi-based MindHelix. The company has launched a mobile App called tuktuk meter, which calculates the distance you have travelled based on your GPS location and then computes the fare.

The application can be downloaded on all mobiles based on Android, Java, iOS or Symbian. The best part is that the application is free, and can be used in any city.

“Anyone with a GPS-enabled mobile phone can download the application free and use it when they are travelling in public transport,” said Kalidasan, chief of operations at Kochi-based MindHelix.

Kalidasan said the application can be used anywhere in India, even in remote areas, and only requires consumers to enter the starting fare used in their city.

In April 2009, TRAI mandated that telecom operators must take user consent in the form of SMS, fax or email before activating value added services such as alerts and caller ringback tones. Are operators doing this? To find out, we conducted a survey.

The survey results clearly show that almost all operators are violating the norms. They activate these services mostly on prepaid accounts without taking user consent. In our survey we found that operators serve unwanted value added services (VAS) more often to prepaid users rather than to post paid users. These services typically cost Rs 30 per month and in an industry where average revenue per user is less than Rs 150, this is a big amount.

After the survey we also tried prepaid numbers from some operators ourselves, and within weeks we faced a similar situation. Vodafone, Reliance Communications, Airtel, Idea and Tata Indicom all activated caller ring back tones without our consent. And when we complained asking for the service to be stopped and for our money to be refunded, this, by and large, was the response across operators: “When the money has already been deducted, why don’t you use the service for one month; we won’t refund your money as you are complaining after seven days of the service having been activated.”

We had a bad experience with Vodafone. First, reaching customer care through the IVR maze was agony, after which they plainly refused to listen. Ninety per cent of people we surveyed said that caller ring back tones were activated without their knowledge. It seems that this particular VAS service has been chosen because the user doesn’t know he has a caller ring back tone until he is charged for it, by which time it is apparently too late to get a refund.

The remaining ten per cent of people we surveyed said they get an alert such as astro, news, Bollywood etc, which they never wanted. Prepaid users are most harassed by inadvertent VAS activation, while post paid users mostly claimed that they have never faced this problem. We found that most people who face these problems are not really mobile savvy. Many users said that their parents’ mobile numbers were activated with unwanted VAS.

In rural and small town markets it seems rampant, and people in these areas also complain about customer care being unresponsive. Amongst the operators we tested, Airtel was the best and almost half the Airtel subscribers we surveyed said they never faced any VAS related issues. However, the rest have had to pay for unwanted VAS, some times even for multiple services they don’t need. The most dejected users s among those we surveyed were from Reliance Communications and Tata Indicom with almost 90 per cent subscribers complaining about unwanted VAS activations.

Vodafone and Idea were marginally better and yet almost 86 and 89 per cent users of these services, respectively, faced the unwanted VAS issue at least once. We surveyed subscribers of Airtel, Reliance Communications, Tata Indicom, Idea, and Vodafone. Our sample comprised 200 people (175 prepaid and 25 postpaid users), and we also bought prepaid cards to double check the validity of the pre paid users’ complaints.

We used social networking and personal interactions with users to arrive at these conclusions. Monthly mobile bills of each survey participant amounts to more than Rs 200.

The smartphone is not just a phone. It can improve the quality of your life. Many people who made a fitness Resolution and have failed to keep it although it’s just the second week of the year, have help at hand. The name of the App is Couch to 5K, and it is available at almost all major mobile app stores.

The app clicks because it sets the bar low enough for you to stick to your fitness resolution. It doesn’t ask you to lose 25 pounds in one go. Instead, it asks users to start with a brisk walk. Couch to 5K as the name suggests is an interval training app.

Interval training is the sort of workout that helps you run five kilometers after nine weeks of inactivity. Couch to 5K says that the goals chosen by you should be your choice and that they should not be based on someone else’s reactions.

The goals should also be such that they are easily manageable during the normal day. C25K app works in the background while users talk on their mobile phones or listen to music, which is very helpful for staying on track while working out.