Mobile Banking, How many times you visit your bank or wait endlessly for a phone call to get through customer care just to check your bank balance?

How many times you visit your bank or wait endlessly for a phone call to get through customer care just to check your bank balance? You need not waste your precious time for these small jobs anymore. Now you can access your bank account and conduct a host of banking transactions and inquiries through Mobile Banking service. Mobile Banking is a service that allows you to do banking transactions through your mobile phone without making a call, using the SMS / WAP facility. You can check your balance, stop a cheque payment, or even pay your utility bills. Mobile Banking service gives you account information and real-time transaction capabilities from the mobile phones anywhere, anytime. Some of the Services that are available through Mobile Banking are:

• You can get your Balance details
• Get last 3 Transaction details
• Request for a Cheque Book
• Stop a Cheque payment
• Inquire about a cheque status
• Request an account statement
• Get Fixed Deposit details
• Get Bill payment details for Electricity, Mobile phone and Telephone services
• Pay your bills

What you have to do is:

• Designate a particular account linked to your Cust-id as the Operative Account.
• Balance inquiry will give you information on all accounts linked to your Customer Identification Number.
• All other transactions will give you information on your Operative Account.

Mobile Banking through SMS
Mobile Banking with SMS is conducted through SMS codes sent to a particular number as directed by your bank. You will receive the response in the form of a text message on your mobile phone screen within a few seconds. For example to get details of your HDFC bank account you will use codes like HDFCBAL, HDFCTXN, HDFCSTM, HDFCSTP<6 digit cheque no.>, etc. for balance enquiry, last transaction details, account statement, stop cheque payment etc. respectively. How it works?
The message sent by you travels from your mobile phone to the SMS Centre of the Cellular Service Provider, and from there it travels to the Bank's systems. The information is retrieved and sent back to your mobile phone via the SMS Centre, all in a matter of a few seconds.
Mobile Banking through WAP
Once you log onto your Bank's WAP site through your WAP/GPRS enabled mobile phone, all you need to do is enter your Cust ID and Net Banking IPIN.  Then go to the Transactions Menu after selecting your account. Select any one of the Transactions like Balance Inquiry, Mini Statement, Statement Request( A Statement of Accounts for the selected account for the current period will be mailed to your address on record with the bank), Cheque Book Request (It will be mailed to your address on record with the bank), Stop Payment, Cheque Status Inquiry(will tell you if the cheque has been paid/unpaid/stopped/invalid), Fixed Deposit Inquiry( can get information on account number, principal amount, rate of interest, maturity date and maturity amount) etc.
Who can avail Mobile Banking services ?
To avail Mobile Banking services you must have:

• an account in a Bank that offers Mobile Banking service e.g. HDFC Bank
• you must be a subscriber of any of the Cellular Service Providers which have tie up with your Bank
• You have to Apply for Mobile Banking through an appropriate Application Form with your bank
• Most of the Banks offer Mobile Banking service absolutely FREE. Although SMS Charges for outgoing messages would be charged as usual by your mobile phone Service Provider.

Mobile Banking Alerts
Some banks also provide the facility of Mobile Banking Alerts where you can get regular updates of transactions in your account as they happen. These include:

• Credits to your account ( you choose a threshold credit amount, above which you'd like to be alerted )
• Debits to your account  ( you choose a threshold debit amount, above which you'd like to be alerted  )
• Cheque returned ( Get to know every time a cheque deposited in your account is returned )

In the time to come we will see more and more banks offering such services in India which will definitely make our life easier.