Moneycontrol Bureau

The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI), in partnership with Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Saturday launched its mobile wallet application ‘State Bank MobiCash’ for feature as well as smartphones.

The new wallet services will initially be available in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana and Bihar and expanded pan-India by the end of December.

MobiCash will allow users to deposit cash through BSNL retail outlets and withdraw funds from their account. SBI already has an application named SBI Buddy for smartphone users.

With the large network of BSNL and SBI, this wallet will reach the remotest areas of the country, in line with the government's digitisation mission, said Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who launched the wallet.



The demonetisation drive by the government wherein old Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes were no longer legal tender from November 8 midnight has reached 40 days. Jaitley said that by and large, the country has welcomed the move and that they have popular support for the move.

This, he said, will lead to bank deposits seeing a surge while cost of deposits will come down. On the other hand, he explained that excessive use of cash will come down.

"Overall, paper currency will get reduced but the extent of money available outside paper currency will go up," he added. Due to this move, he said that debit cards have become more popular, even more than credit cards.

SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said in a statement that this wallet would initiate the masses to the digital journey in an assisted mode.

SBI already has an application, SBI Buddy for smartphone users.

BSNL Chairman and Managing Director Anupam Shrivastava said that this wallet will bridge the gap between the urban and rural market and fulfill aspirations across all sections of our society and move India towards a cashless world.

State Bank MobiCash has both customer initiated and retail assisted features for usage of the wallet.