Technology is changing our lives fast and furious and today on the show, we are going to take you through a high-tech way to transact with your money and make the most of it!

Money keeps changing its shape, from shells long ago to bits and bytes. And today, money is not even in your credit card. It is inside your cell phone!

Do you know there's a lot of money stuff you can do today on just your mobile? Pay your Insurance premium, buy movie tickets and even pay for a cosy candle light dinner? This perhaps is the next big thing which could make plastic money or a credit card redundant. Mobile commerce or better known as m-commerce is waiting to grab your attention and get you hooked, just like internet banking did. And we definitely want all of you watching 30 minutes to be up to date on all smart ways to deal with money. So today we'll take you through a short reckoner on how to use your nifty little mobile to make your life easier. Your Mobile: Your Wallet?

Apart from some ads, I really had not used the mobile banking till a week back. Okay, I'm having breakfast with this tech dude and we're discussing technology and money. He taps a few keys on his phone and I get an instant SMS - he's just paid 50 bucks toward my mobile bill! While this is fairly trivial, he spoke about using M-Check to pay his life insurance premium while he was abroad using this facility. This is possible because of a relatively new service called the mobile payment gateway. So what is this mobile payment gateway?

# It marries your bank with your cell phone. And instead of pulling out your wallet, you pull out your cell phone to buy, transfer money, pay utility bills, recharge toll bridge cards

There are two ways to do this:

# Phone becomes a virtual wallet. An extension of your pre-paid mobile phone, expect that you are pre-paying and using the money to book tickets, pay for a friend's phone or even to pay the toll on a toll flyway.

# Secondly, your phone gets linked to your bank directly or through your debit or credit card. Apart from the ease, it also prevents you from handing your credit card over to the vendor each time you use it. Or when you punch it out on the net.

Once the regulations are fully in place and we get used to this method of transacting, a signal in the phone will be as crucial as oxygen in the air.

And here's a quick demo from M-check on how you can use a mobile payment facility:

# Step 1 - You need to register with any mobile payment service. This  can happen

on the net. You can go to the website of any payment gateway, M-check or oxipay and enter your mobile number. You can get a friend to forward you a link on the handset and download the required software.

# Step 2 - You register with the service for which you need to give your name and address. You then create your own pin number and select merchants. Then you go ahead and transact. That's it. It is that simple.

Now, let’s give you all the options available today for mobile payment:

# There is M-check of course and you can link it to your credit card, debit card or bank account.

# Then there is MeraMobi - linked to all 3, credit or debit card or bank account

# Obopay - is linked to bank account

# Oxipay is a Virtual wallet

# Paymate is linked to your bank account and virtual wallet

# Ngpay is linked to HDFC Bank, credit and debit card

For the two services - mobile banking and mobile wallet - there are two sets of RBI regulations.

RBI guidelines for mobile banking:

# Only for customers of banks

# Holders of credit and debit cards

# Only in India

# Per transaction cap of Rs 5,000

# Per day cap of Rs 10,000

# Banks can put a monthly cap

RBI draft guidelines for Prepaid Instruments like Oxicash and Paypal

# Maximum value cannot exceed Rs 50,000

# A validity of six months

# Not more than 10 per cent of the remaining value in such a card can be deducted by the vendor at expiry

# Service providers will have to be authorised by the RBI to offer these services and they will have to have a net worth of Rs 10 lakh or more

No amount of guidelines or regulation will stop your cash from being misused for a carelessly handled cell phone.

And now, it is time for our new product this week. We're looking at DBS Chola Tax Advantage Fund. The basics first:

# 10 year closed end equity fund

# 2.25 per cent entry load

# Closes on 19 March 2009