The Indian farmer is all set to go Hitech with the introduction of Mobile / Wireless credit cards by Bharti Airtel Ltd in association with State Bank of India.
A pilot project is under way in 9 villages and full commercial deployment may take another 12 months. Currently, farmers in India are provided with Kisan Credit Card, which is just a piece of paper. [Private Bank's Rural Credit facility is much more secure and sophisticated with Bio-Metric identification].
How does the Mobile Credit Card work ?
A farmers data can be loaded onto a mobile phone and radio frequency identification technology allows this data to be retrieved remotely. Does this mean our existing handsets don't work ? Or where is the data loaded onto ? Into a SIM ? Now when the farmer wants to do the purchase, he can walk into the shop and the shop keeper needs a specialized phone which will act as a card swipe machine when the customers phone is within 20 cms range ? Will the farmer authorize the transaction through his phone ? What about other security features ? Hopefuly, they'll all be addressed.
Telcos in India who now see Villages as future growth markets are set to woo farmers with all these kind of applications such that mobile becomes a platform for communication in India rather than the bulky PC.
Tags: Mobile India, m-Commerce India, Mobile Credit, Airtel SBI Card
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