Experts predict that when money begins to move on the handset, the ‘R-factor’—the expansion of mobile services to rural markets will emerge as the future driver of the VAS market. The projection is that about 40% of VAS revenues in this category will then start coming from villages and small towns, which have very poor banking facilities.

That’s when the mobile phone would double up as a smart card, completely replacing today’s credit/debit cards. Imagine the potential of such technology fulfilling the gap in the rural banking infrastructure. Even today, its customers at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’ are driving revenues of operators in this promising area, which is expected to double in the next two years.

The day is not far when international mobile money transfer, which was earlier somewhat of a bottleneck will make possible millions of remittances to homes from migrant workers and white-collar labor.