Thread: Prepaid Balance cannot be used for shopping

Once upon a time there was an idea. No this isnt an advertisement for Idea Mobile Service. The idea was to implement payment using the available mobile phone prepaid credit. Alas RBI has strictly opposed to such gimmicks. According to them the balance of a mobile phone prepaid account cannot be considered as valid as it tends to reduce the "efficacy of the monetary policy". professionals are also in for a shock because lunch coupons and gift vouchers have also come in the radar of RBI.

I didn't understand what you said, I not good in ecoomics related stuff...

Originally Posted by newprouser

I didn't understand what you said, I not good in ecoomics related stuff...

There was a proposition to buy things using your mobile phone balance. But RBI has intervened in the matter before it could even take birth. RBI has also criticized the food coupons and gift vouchers which are common amongst us.

pre-paid phones can be recharged by anybody. not just the owner. using the pre-paid credit for purchase could result in a new avenue of getting cuts and kick-backs for the govt. babus and also lead to money laundering and black money.
the use of food coupons for purchase of grocery and even non-grocery products in dept. stores has lead to a situation where a major part of salary is paid in food coupons/gift vouchers and there is under-reporting of actual salary. the govt. first imposed fringe benefit tax on the employer as a deterent. but there was little difference as the employers simply added the FBT on food coupons for the purpose of CTC calculations and negotiated accordingly. so now other restrictions are also being put in place.

the consequences could have been more serious than it seemed at first thought ... think about the use of mobile phones in terrorist acivities these days. purchases using mobiles would have lead to some serious new criminal ideas which we wont be able to think at this moment. there are services for this purpose like credit, debit cards ... why use mobiles for these things ... i have never heard of any such thing before.