The Jiring service or electronic mobile wallet (M-Wallet) service has been designed by Mobile Communication Company of Iran (MCI) to enable certain banking transactions and e-shopping on mobile phones. Currently, the service allows for cash transfer from one M-Wallet to another; however, it is not yet possible to transfer cash from one debit card to another (card-to-card) on mobile phone, according to the news website, Bina.
The popular service has so far been provided only via ATMs and internet banking. Although technically it is now possible to add the feature, in the absence of a request from the central bank, Jiring has yet to obtain the required permission from the Communication Regulatory Agency (CRA), according to Alireza Tolou, Jiring managing director.
One-time password (OTP), m-signature and e-payment services are among the new services that the company intends to unveil in the near future.
The company is planning to offer banking services under the name of “Ham Bank” via banking network and USSD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data). The service is expected to help reduce costs, enhance customer satisfaction and diversify service delivery channels and, at times, generate revenue for the banks, according to Tolou. At the moment, Jiring enjoys close cooperation with six banks and is in talks with one or two of them to shift economically-unviable card-based services on mobile phone, given the high costs of printing, distribution and verification of debit cards.
In addition, Jiring is seeking to localize the e-signature banking service with the help of Amn Afzar and develop it into m-signature which enables digital signature via mobile phones instead of computers. Jiring e-payment portal is another service that was unveiled on pilot in 2014 Iran Telecom Expo. The company is in negotiations with several payment service providers to add the feature to banking e-payment portals. The service will increase the security of e-payment as the user is only required to enter mobile phone number in the website and the rest of the information is processed on mobile phone.
