Bharti Airtel launched a slew of partnerships for mobile commerce services including mobile money transfer.

The operator entered in to partnership with leading banks ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI, Corporation Bank and also with VISA to offer three specialised services namely Mobile Money Transfer (MMT), postpaid bill payment and prepaid recharge.

Bharti Airtel customers can also make payments over their mobiles for air, rail and movie tickets.

The solutions have been developed by mChek and have been certified by PCIDSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards), a stringent globally accepted security standard, the company added.

Bharti Airtel director marketing & communications Gopal Vittal said that mobile money transfer services would be launched across the country on March 15. “At the first stage, only transfers within India will be possible. Later, we will launch the platform that will help residents outside India to transfer money back home via their mobiles— we are awaiting regulatory clearances for this,” Mr Vittal said.

Bharti has earlier tied up with the world’s largest money transfer company Western Union for international mobile money transfer services.

Mr Vittal also added that the Bharti planned to roll-out cash-to-cash money transfers by the year-end. “We will require separate regulatory clearances before we can offer this service,” he said.