Bharti Airtel is all set to start financial services on mobile phones as the company has been granted a licence by the Reserve Bank of India recently.

"Bharti Airtel was granted the licence to use the Semi Closed Wallet by the RBI in this quarter. This allows a customer to exchange physical cash for virtual money which can be stored on mobile phone to pay for goods/services for transaction of value less than Rs 5,000," Bharti said here.

This will create mobile payments as a category in the country and allow Airtel to offer a secure and user friendly medium to customers for making payments, it added.

The company, however, did not specify exact time frame for launch of these services.

This is one of the value added services (VAS) the mobile industry has been looking at for quite some time and was engaged in discussion with regulators and other government authorities for necessary permissions and approvals.

Semi closed wallet are prepaid payment instruments, redeemable at specific outlets, with whom the operator ties up. However, instruments do not permit cash withdrawal or redemption by the holder, Bharti statement said.

"Currently, we are evaluating various options that this license provides to find out how best we can create a value proposition for Airtel customers... It is difficult to give an exact timeline for the launch at this stage," it said.

An Inter Ministerial Group (IMG) was constituted by the government on Department of Information Technology's initiative last year to enable finalisation of a framework for delivery of basic financial services using mobile phones.

The IMG is chaired by the Secretary, DIT and included, among others, representatives from Department of Financial Services, Department of Posts, Ministry of Rural Development, Planning Commission, UID Authority of India, TRAI, RBI, Department of Telecom and the Home Ministry.

After extensive discussions among members and other stakeholders involving the Banks, telecom service providers, security agencies, and the public, and holding three meetings of the full Group and several meetings of the sub-group constituted by it, the IMG finalised its report in March 2010.

A Committee of Secretaries constituted under Cabinet Secretary to consider the recommendations of the IMG met on 1st April 2010 and accepted the Report of the IMG and approved the IMG framework as the basis of delivering financial services using mobile technology.

Bharti Airtel has become the first telecom service provider to get the licence and may also start financial services using mobile phones.