IDBI

Although we couldn’t find any online banking services on IDBI’s website, we found a service called MoneyMobile. This is a WAP/SMS-enabled service, which allows you to bank from your cellphone. On their site they have a list of 10 major cities where they have started this service and a promise to launch it in the rest of the country by February 2001. If your cellphone is not WAP enabled you can use simple SMS to access this service. Right now this service allows you to do the following: Find out your balance, your last three transactions, status of a check payment, and request for a checkbook/statement. Soon it will also let you access information about your DEMAT account. As for security, all the WAP transactions are WAP-WTLS (Wireless Transport layered security) complaint. This means that all your WAP transactions are safe. The site explains in detail how to use your cellphone for this service, so getting started should not be a problem. To register for this service you have to either contact your nearest branch or drop them an e-mail at the specified address. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any response to an e-mail query that we sent them.

Juhi Bhambal, Pragya Madan, and Sachin Makhija