Etisalat, the largest mobile operator in the UAE, has announced the launch of a Mobile Money Transfer pilot from UAE to India. The company has tied up with Tata Communications, Idea Cellular on the operator side in India, and banking partners - HSBC India in India and Mashreqbank from the UAE. The commercial launch of this service is expected by June 2008, as per the release. It’s apparently also a mobile wallet service. Etisalat has been stepping up its activities in India - the operator, which provides telecom services in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region had earlier established a subsidiary in Bangalore. The UAE has a fairly substantial expatriate population. While the three-way tie-up between operators is a significant achievement, I’m surprised at the choice of HSBC as a partner, though Abdulla Hashim, VP Marketing for Etisalat’s Enterprise Solutions says that they will have access to 40,000 bank branches.

Other money transfer pilots in India include tieups between , and Reliance and ICICI Bank and Times Financial Services.

What this segment really needs, is not separate operator-NBFC-bank partnerships, but for one or two third party service providers to aggregate services across mobile operators, NBFCs and banks...in tech terms, one needs interoperability. Interoperability of services is not yet an issue, but it will be, once mobile number portability is allowed. In fact, services might serve as an effective lock-in for mobile operators.