Use USSD Messages On Mobile For Bank Balance Enquiry: NPCI

The National Payment Corporation of India is in talks with telcos to facilitate banking transactions through USSD (unstructured supplementary service data) messages, according to ToI.

NPCI proposes the use of mobiles to offer non-financial transactions such as obtaining your bank balance. USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) is a GSM based technology that is used to send text between a mobile phone and an application program in the network. It allows a mobile to receive content without using the internet or activating GPRS capabilities and is used to obtain pre-paid balances and offers as well as access Facebook and Twitter.

The country has 230 million debit card holders but does not offer adequate ATM facilities. India records 1.5 million balance enquiry transactions per day at ATMs: this is close to five times the global average. With the use of mobiles, banks will be able to keep pace with this massive scale while increasing the base of users who want to access their bank accounts.