The National Payments Council of India, the umbrella organization for that country's payment systems, is expanding its Inter-Bank Mobile Payment Service electronic transaction network to include merchant payments by consumers. Now customers of the NPCI's 50 member banks can use their mobile devices not only for person-to-person payments, but also for payments to merchants.

"IMPS Merchant Payments further enhances the value that IMPS offers as one-of-a-kind, instant, 24/7, interoperable payment system in the country," said Shri A. P. Hota, managing director and CEO of NPCI. "Merchants can use IMPS to receive payments from customers conveniently, safely, anytime, anywhere."

In India, mobile devices are everywhere but point-of-sale terminals are rare. The country has only about 600,000 POS terminals spread across 10 million merchants, Hota said. The new IMPS feature could offer merchants a safe, secure way to receive payments from the country's 600 million active mobile subscribers.

IMPS merchant services can be implemented by brick-and-mortar stores, web sites or even mobile applications, to facilitate anytime, anywhere service, NPCI said.

Seven of NPCI's member banks are currently enabled on the IMPS merchant payments service, with another five looking to activate the service soon. Services and merchants enabled on IMPS merchant payments include railway ticket and airline ticketing and credit card bill payment, NPCI said.

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