India's Bharti Airtel has announced the launch of its m-Commerce service - 'mChek on Airtel´ on the voice platform. The new service provides secure use of voice (IVR) for m-Commerce transactions for all Airtel mobile customers. The mChek on Airtel service on voice will enable the 100-million-plus Airtel customers to pay Airtel mobile and fixed-line bills, recharge Airtel pre-paid and digitalTV accounts, recharge Delhi-Gurgaon expressway toll tags, pay insurance premiums, buy gifts, tickets and shop using their mobile phones. READ MORE

Western Union has announced the launch of a Digital Vendor Program intended to extend the reach and accessibility of Western Union Money Transfer services to mobile finance initiatives in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.

"Establishing a strong mobile vendor program is a critical step in the delivery of our 'Western Union Anywhere' service proposition," said Matt Dill, SVP and Head of Western Union Digital Ventures. "By collaborating on a global level with proven mobile platform providers, we believe we can simplify deployments for our mobile partners and introduce a more consistent Western Union experience for consumers." READ MORE

AcCells, a developer of contactless technology for the mobile phone industry and mChek, a provider of mobile payments in India and Sri Lanka, have announced what they're calling "a patent-pending breakthrough for Contactless Payments." According to the two companies, by "combining service initiation by AcCells mID and transaction authorization with the mChek SIM Toolkit, the solution presents a new level of user experience, transaction cost and efficiency. Most importantly the solution works with ALL existing mobile phones, does not require ANY change to infrastructure and platforms of Mobile Network Operators and/or Banking Infrastructure, and works in MNO-led or Bank-led environments." READ MORE

Gemalto has announced a partnership with India-based technology partner mChek to bolster the range and choice of secured mobile banking solutions available on Gemalto SIM cards to markets in South Asia. READ MORE

As evidence that mobile payments adoption is really happening in India, Bharti Airtel has announced that more than one million users have registered for the mChek on Airtel service since its commercial launch in June 2008.

“Consumer adoption and repeat usage of the service has been extremely encouraging”, said Sanjay Swamy, CEO of mChek. “With the Reserve Bank of India’s mobile payments guidelines now in place, banks and merchants are fast adopting our open-platform to build a thriving eco-system, and a compelling suite of services for consumers.” READ MORE

India's mChek, a mobile payments and security company, has developed mobile banking and payments technology that it is applying to microfinance applications and mass banking in a pilot with Grameen Koota, a microfinance institution in India. In a series of videos, mChek introduces the service, demonstrates how it works and shares some initial results.

If you're interested in learning more about mChek's pilot results and its work with the bottom of the economic pyramid, contact Valerie Rozycki at Valerie@mchek.com. READ MORE

mChek has announced it has been certified as compliant with the latest Payment Card Industry, Data Security Standard 1.2. mChek believes it is "one of the first payment products globally to be certified as PCI DSS 1.2 compliant." READ MORE

In a multi-part series, Sramana Mitra interviews mChek CEO Sanjay Swamy about his company's mobile banking and payments platform in India. Swamy comments: "It is very important to ensure there is a means of instant gratification. It may not expose you to all of the features and capabilities, but at least the customer can touch it now. That is what we had to do. We had to simplify the product and get it out there."

MSN India reports on mobile wallets and payments in India saying that "current payment players in India are mChek, Obopay and PayMate." The article notes that the Reserve Bank of India is currently formulating the regulatory guidelines for mobile payments with the final draft expected by June 2008.

Airtel has announced the launch of range of Mobile Commerce solutions including Mobile Money Transfer (MMT), Postpaid Bill Payment and Prepaid Recharge on the mobile phone. Airtel is partnering with ICICI bank, HDFC bank, SBI, Corporation bank and VISA to enable these payments using a solution that has been developed by mChek.

mChek, an Indian company focused on mobile security and payments services, has announced that its mChek on Airtel postpaid bill payment service has won the GSMA Global Mobile Award 2008 for Best Billing and Customer Care Solution with Airtel at the 13 th Annual GSM Association Global Mobile Awards 2008 at Barcelona.

Abhineet Kumar reports from Mumbai for livemint.com on the evolution of mobile banking and payments in India - including the regulatory oversight of that evolution. "Californian mobile payment service provider Obopay Inc. and Bangalore’s mChek India Payment Systems Pvt. Ltd are among a fast-expanding breed of mobile payment service providers which have planned offerings that work within the guidelines and bring the convenience of mobile transactions."

India's mChek, a provider of mobile security and payments services, has announced the introduction of the "patent-pending mChek Banner, a unique solution that enhances banner advertisements on the Internet into payment-enabled links. The mChek Banner is currently available to all users with pre-paid or post-paid Airtel mobile connections."

EFYtimes.com reports on mChek's introduction of the mChek mobile payments solution for ecommerce merchants.

Visa has announced that it is extending its Visa Money Transfer service in India with a new mobile capability developed by mChek. Visa Money Transfer, launched by Visa in India in 2004, is a domestic card-to-card money transfer service that enables a Visa cardholder to transfer money conveniently and securely to another Visa account number. mChek is providing the software for mobile handsets and processing capabilities to link up to VisaNet, Visa’s global transaction processing network, for the new mobile service.

mChek has announced that its on-demand mobile payments solution, mChek/Payments, has been commercially introduced in Sri Lanka by Dialog Telekom, a telecom operator, in partnership with NDB Bank, one of the largest private sector commercial banks in Sri Lanka. mChek says that this deployment is "the first commercial launch of a Card Present mobile payment platform in the world."