Recently I started doing online banking and also using the Card for the payment. I must say, it was such a convenience and a delight doing the things from your home.
It was simply a pleasant experience to be able to pay for the Telephone, Electricity etc bills from comfort of home, book travel tickets, and view ones bank account, transfer money from ones account to other accounts, schedule transactions etc.
It could not be more convenient than not having to go to ATM to get cash, or cut cheques, fill pay in slips, go to payment counters, que up if one wanted receipts, and to top it all pay at your convenience, even if it means making the transaction at 12 midnight!
Certain things I could understand, was that there is
1) the payer – who is paying,
2) the payee – who is receiving the money, and
3) there is the payment gateway through whom the payment is processed.
Now within this setup, there are the following variables:
1) bank of the payer – if the payers is paying through eBanking facility
2) the card issuer – if the payer is paying through credit card
3) the arrangement between the payer and the gateway through whom the payment is being processed.
Regarding the third point, an illustration would be like – if suppose you want to pay your telephone bill of say TelcomCo – one option would be to directly login to your account in the TelcomCo website and then pay your bill. This way the amount is directly received by TelcomCo.
However, if you have registered with some payment gateway say PGPay that processes bills for TelcomCo. Then in such situation, it means you have an account with PGPay who have some arrangement with TelcomCo for processing their bills. In this situation, when you login to pay your bills through PGPay, the amount paid will be deducted from your Bank A/c or Card A/c – however, it does not directly reaches TelcomCo. The money is received by PGPay, which then sends it to TelcomCo later on.
Often its better to have an account directly in the Payee’s website and process payment directly from there – this ensures quick payment directly to the biller. This is also because, one is not always aware as to which is the default / preferred payment gateway for the biller.
In all these situation, there is also an issue relating to Service Charge – depending on the arrangement between the Bank, the Biller, the Card issuer and the Payment Gateway. Some payments may contain zero charges for the purpose of payment eg. donations to temple etc.
A real illustration relating to online charges would be Indian Railway for the purpose of Online Ticket reservation. Now, Indian Railways directly does not provide any such online reservation – this is provided through IRCTC – which is a separate company under Ministry of Railways. Now for each ticket IRCTC charges a fixed amount including service tax, depending on the type of ticket booked – whatever be the ticket value. For example if one books AC Chair Car, IRCTC will charge Rs. 25 per ticket, and when you make payment, the payers intermediary also charges eg. SBI charges Rs. 10 (including service tax) for each such transaction. There are different rates for different types of transaction modes and also types of reservation.
Given this situation, the online user of financial transaction has to be careful in determining the most assuring form of payment method. The options in the internet financial transactions are many. One can see quite clearly that in such online payments, the payment can be made / initiated from the Payers Bank, from Payees Website, from the Payment Gateways, including Third Party payment gateways, and also Card issuers site. Given such situation, one has to decide the on the most appropriate form of transaction method for the person using these services.
Another thing is that now a days there are also services which are using the Debit Card for online transactions alongwith the Credit Card. This would be quite a relief for persons who do not want to have a Credit Card. For that matter some people consider Credit Card to be a headache. However, if one is an informed user of Credit Card, it is a fairly good facility – except that there are charges to maintain such cards that is levied by issuer/bank.
On payment gateways providing facility for payment through Debit Card, it is the Bank Account that gets debited. However, in such situation, it is not necessary to have online banking registration.
There are many people who are skeptical about e-transactions – and there is no end to examples of frauds that have appeared in newspaper and media. However online financial transactions means that one has to be as responsible for what one does. Some simple rules would be – don’t tell your account id or password to anyone, don’t do financial transactions from public places like internet cafes – and in the worst situation if one has to do such transactions, then change passwords often, use protective measures that are prescribed by banks and card issuers.
eTransaction is a choice – it is convenience of technology; to adopt to technology in an informed manner is a good choice – but to curse it without being informed would be a wrong choice.
(This article is by experience and is not a technical guide. Words like PGPay and TelcomCo has been coined for illustration purpose.)
how can i pay my airtel bill online
You will have to register at website airtel.in -> My Account -> Register Now. The airtel site provides all sorts of online payment methods viz. credit card / debit card / online banking