Mobile banking is the new buzzword for the niche players who plans to bring banking to India's rural population but the glitch is that RBI has still not issued final guidelines. However, players have already begun work on this new concept.

US-based mobile payment company Obopay, which marked its India foray through partnership with Yes bank, is betting big on mobile banking.

The pilot project aims to connect with rural Indians is going to be launched in Mumbai. But mobile banking relatively new in india raises many security concerns especially because the RBI has still not issued final guidelines on mobile banking.

“The RBI does have certain value based limits and banks can regulate how much they want to transfer depending on the nature of transaction. We have a two factor authentification procedure and that way unsolicited calls from any bank is not even possible, hence phising won’t happen,” said Aditya Menon, CEO, Obopay India.

But despite that optimism the final guidelines could be more stringent spoiling the party for mobile banking.

However, players like Obopay and Grameen Solutions are not in a mood to wait and have in fact begun work for the Indian market, a market very different from the US.

''The US is a serious banking environment, people are much more comfortable with mobile banking, and the facilities needed are much more clearly defined,” said Carol Realini , CEO, Obopay. 

Given that 87 per cent of the poorest households don't have access to credit, there sure is a huge market to be tapped here.

But the question really is, with hazy security regulations and challenges of providing multilingual services in the rural environments, will the 25 per cent mobile penetration in India alone make this a successful model?