Prabhakar Sinha/TNN

New Delhi, Jun 14: Move over netbanking. Now with a few jabs of your thumb on the cell keypad, you could withdraw and transfer money from your account, pay credit card bills and check balances.

Removing the final hurdle to the launch of mobile banking services in the country, the Reserve Bank of India on Friday issued operative guidelines for banks to launch the service.

According to banking sources, these services are likely to be in operation within a few months. Banks and other operators have been asked to comment on the guidelines by June 30. The final guidelines will be issued after that.

The proposed guidelines allow mobile payments through various mobile network operator based channels. To achieve the objective of giving access to bank accounts to all, RBI wants to introduce digital certificate-based transaction capabilities to guard against fraud.

There are more than 26 crore mobile phone subscribers in the country but far fewer bank accounts. The central bank feels that allowing banking on mobiles will bring more people into the banking net.

It could also help contain graft in government schemes like National Rural Employment guarantee programme where the state can make payments with the help of mobile banking.

According to the guidelines, the banks would issue a new mobile pin (mPIN), with a minimum of 4 digits, to customers. The mPIN would be issued and authenticated by the bank or a payment application service provider appointed by the bank.

Laws may have to be tightened to factor in the new technology. For example, the security procedure adopted by banks for authenticating users needs to be recognized by law as a substitute for signatures. Customer too must be sensitised to the risks of such banking, the guidelines said.