How to use Interbank Mobile Payment Service (IMPS) in India?

The growth story of mobile payments is going to explode as the Interbank Mobile Payment System aka IMPS gets a green signal in India. People will now be able to pay taxi fares and bills at a kirana store with their mobile. No you don't need a smartphone to use the IMPS system, but any regular phone with SMS capabilities would just work fine. National Payment Corporation of India has just okayed the system.

The likehood of IMPS getting popular in India is very high because the cost of transaction is very low [ ~25 paisa per transaction ] as against use of credit or debit cards. Though the IMPS, mobile payment system available in India for some time now, it allowed mostly person to person payment. As a result, though about 39 million users had enrolled from mobile transactions service in India through 50 banks, the overall number of transactions were very limited.

AP Hota, MD & CEO, NPCI says that though there are over 10 million kirana shops all over India, the number of point of sale terminals are < 7 lakhs. Of all the 50 banks, SBI, ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered had enabled the IMPS system for merchant payments.

How to use IMPS Mobile Payment System

IMPS system allows payment of up to Rs. 5000 in a day via any mobile through SMS. Users will get a IMPS mobile ID which can be used in the same way as the credit cards. The IVRS systems too will accept the IMPS mobile IDs for payments.

I'm curious to know if any of our CEans have enrolled for the service. Would be interesting to see how it works.