SMS Banking for the Village

Microcapital.org reports that Centurion Bank of India (CBoP) intends to unveil a platform that will enable people in the rural areas of India use banking services via text messages.

For instance, if a farmer wants to purchase fertiliser, he can just send an SMS to a fertiliser dealer about his requirement. The dealer, in turn, will deliver the required fertiliser to the farmer. The payment for the fertiliser would be deducted from the farmer’s account by CBoP and transferred to the account of the fertiliser dealer. For this, both the farmer and the fertiliser should have their accounts with CBoP.

CBoP believes that this platform could eventually replace cash altogether.