Using their cell phones, Bharti Airtel users will be able to make virtual payments at several restaurants and retail outlets.

Airtel, the country’s largest mobile service provides has recently received a go ahead from the Reserve Bank of India that would allow it to collect a maximum of Rs 5000 from its customers. This can be converted into virtual money and saved on the handset and used by the user at outlets that have a tie up with Airtel.

Over the next couple of months several other leading telecom operators are also slated to receive semi closed wallet license.

With over 650 million mobile phone users present in the country, all telecom operates are vying to offer various financial services that can be used to make payments across various sectors. Such services are already prevalent in countries like South Korea, Japan, certain markets of Europe and parts of China.

RBI in its annual monetary policy had announced earlier this year that it was looking to use mobile phones as a great medium for making banking facilities accessible even in remote areas of the country, provided the cellular operators and the telecom companies co operate to make this initiative a success.

In a statement Bharti Airtel said “Semi-closed wallets are prepaid payment instruments that are redeemable at a group of clearly-identified merchant locations/ establishments which contract specifically with the issuer to accept the payment instrument. These instruments do not permit cash withdrawal or redemption by the holder.”

M-money or mobile money payment has already been introduced by Bhutan Telecom which is a one stop shop for making payments.

No timeframe ahs been indicated by the company for launch of these services.

“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 imperative to design a safe & convenient deployment before we can take to the market,” its statement added.

As the demand for automobiles reach a new height in India owing to several conducive factors like low interest rates, higher disposable income and a reviving economy, several auto manufacturers have decided to make the country their export hub. This has mainly contributed to the country topping the list and moving to the seventh position in the list of top most vehicle manufacturing countries.

At an FICCI function, B S Meena, the Secretary for Ministry of Heavy Industries has commented that the government had projected that the country would reach the seventh position by 2016 while drafting the Automotive Mission plan.

However, this goal has now been achieved six years before the estimated time frame. B S Meena has also added that the country is expected to reach the top five positions within 2020.

As of now, China maintains its stance as the world’s largest vehicle manufacturer and it is followed by the United States of America in the second place. As per the Automotive Mission Plan 2016, the main aim is to clock a turnover of USD 145 billion in 2016 by the automotive sector. The other aim is to provide employment within the next 10 years to at least 25 million people.

In 2005 – 2006 the turnover f the automotive sector was at just USD 34 billion and close to 13.1 million people were being employed either directly or indirectly by the automotive sector.

The telecom minister on Tuesday has stated that India hoped that the ongoing security issue concerning BlackBerry services would be resolved and the government would receive access to the electronic messages.

Meanwhile RIM, Research In Motion’s BlackBerry services is facing flak in other countries, especially in the Middle East too. The governments here fear that consumers might take undue advantage of the secure services provided by blackberry to aid terrorism or peddle pornography.

RIM’s encrypted messaging and mail service has been threatened to be shut down in India, unless the government gained access to it.

Earlier this month, India began accessing some of the traffic carried on this Smartphone device as part of the campaign that unmonitored messaging and mails could put the country’s security at risk.

Telecom Minister Andimuthu Raja told reporters “I do hope it will be resolved.”

On august 30th 2010, RIM had offered several ways in which the authorities could monitor the Blackberry communications, said the Interior Ministry in India. Over the next 60 days, the feasibility of these methods would be checked by the government.

Raja however refused to reveal the solutions offered by RIM and said “We are periodically reviewing.”

However, the encrypted corporate email being at the heart of RIM’s business, RIM has insisted that they would not be able to decode this service.

The company is yet to confirm if India’s security agencies have started accessing Blackberry traffic.

While notices have also been sent to Skype and Google, India is also urging RIM to set up a local server in the country, which would allow the security agencies to monitor the entire web data easily.

The Telecom Commission, Raja has confirmed would also offer bail out options to the new telecom operations who are struggling to stay afloat in the overcrowded 15 player telecom market in India. These companies are facing a lot of issues due to the low tariffs and the high operational costs.

As per the current regulations in India, the telecom operators cannot sell out their operations within three years of their existence. The last batch of telecom operators who received their license in 2008 would have to wait another year to sell out.

Raja also said “In the last operators’ meeting, it was highlighted bailout provisions may be done. It will be discussed in the Telecom Commission”.

The Reserve Bank of India has raised its short-term lending and borrowing rates with immediate effect during the mid-quarterly review of the monetary policy. While the repo or lending rate was hiked by 25 basis points to 6%, the reverse repo or borrowing rate was increased by 50 basis points to 5%. This is the fifth instance of rate hike by the central bank this year.

“I think it (the rate hike) is in the right direction because now the corridor has been narrowed down and still inflationary pressure is there in the system,” Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told media persons in New Delhi today. “I think the adjustment of repo and reverse repo will help to mop up additional liquidity, which is putting pressure on the system,” he added.

Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission said that the rate hike will not impact foreign portfolio inflows into the country.

The latest rate hike is expected to result in an increase in cost of funds for banks. This will ultimately make loans more expensive, thereby reducing consumption. Chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu said that the banks may increase deposit rates, but the liquidity adjustment facility (LAF) corridor signals them to lower the gap between loans and deposit rates. He added that the RBI move is not to dampen growth prospects and future hikes cannot be ruled out.

The RBI move is specifically meant to tame inflation, though the inflation has displayed a tendency to mellow. The central bank has pointed out that inflation has reached a plateau, but is likely to remain at unacceptably high levels for some more months. While the overall inflation came down in the last two months, food inflation is climbing up once again.

The RBI move aided in ending the stock market’s dream run this week. Sensex closed 0.43% lower at 19,417.