Indian telecom operators have decided to waive off charges for mobile banking services till December 31, 2016, Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said on Tuesday.

“To facilitate use of electronic banking facility and reduce difficulty to the common man, telecom operators have decided to waive off charges for mobile banking services till December 31,” said the minister in his tweet.

At present, a charge is being levied by telecom operators for the mobile banking, which is commonly known as USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) charge.

Following the government’s demonetisation of 500 and 1,000 rupee notes, people are increasingly moving towards mobile banking and net banking.

Bharti Airtel said it waived off transaction charges for all USSD based mobile banking transactions over its network till December 31, 2016. “We would encourage customers to leverage this benefit for their convenience,” said Airtel spokesperson.

Vodafone India said it waiving off all USSD charges presently levied for mobile banking till 31 December 2016.

“As several million customers use feature phones, we are hopeful that this free access to mobile banking will encourage them to adopt it as their preferred and convenient mode for banking,” said Sunil Sood, MD and CEO of Vodafone India.

Vodafone M-Pesa, mobile money services from Vodafone, is the ideal digital wallet for masses, enabling users to digitise cash, remit it to family and friends, pay bills and/or withdraw it at their convenience from over 120,000 touch points across the country.

TRAI action

Indian telecom regulator TRAI has reduced tariffs for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD)-based mobile banking transactions to a third of existing rates.

TRAI lowered the tariff to a maximum of 50 paise per transaction, from earlier rate of Rs 1.50 per session.

As part of its quality of service regulation, TRAI has also increased the number of stages from five to eight per USSD sessions. The USSD route is usually used by people with feature phones.

Together, these amendments will facilitate the banks, their agents or any entity authorised by the Reserve Bank of India for better delivery of banking and payment services to the consumers through mobile phones over USSD. The USSD service is used by people using feature phones to check the balance in their bank accounts, transfer money in tier II and tier III cities.