M-Commerce

INTRODUCTION TO MOBILE COMMERCE

Mobile Commerce refers to wireless electronic commerce used for conducting commerce or business through a handy device like cellular phone or Personal Digital Assistant (PDAs). It is also said that it is the next generation wireless e-commerce that needs no wire and plug-in devices. Mobile commerce is usually called as ‘m-Commerce' in which user can do any sort of transaction including buying and selling of the goods, asking any services, transferring the ownership or rights, transacting and transferring the money by accessing wireless internet service on the mobile handset itself.

The next generation of commerce would most probably be mobile commerce or m-commerce. Presuming its wide potential reach all major mobile handset manufacturing companies are making WAP enabled smart phones and providing the maximum wireless internet and web facilities covering personal, official and commerce requirement to pave the way of m-commerce that would later be very fruitful for them.

Advantage of m-Commerce

M-commerce has several major advantages over its fixed counterparts because of its specific inbuilt characteristics such as ubiquity, personalization, flexibility, and distribution, mobile commerce promises exceptional business market potential, greater efficiency and higher fruitfulness.

Thus it is not surprising that mobile commerce is emerging much faster than its fixed counterpart. M-commerce is more personalized than e-commerce and thus needs a gentle approach to appraise m-commerce applications.

AREAS / USES OF M-COMMERCE

In the current commerce industry, mobile commerce or M-Commerce has been entered in finance, services, retails, tele-communication and information technology services. In these sectors, M-Commerce is not only being widely accepted but also it is being more used as a popular way of business/ commerce. Let us constrain this discussion to finance and banking application, related issues, initiatives and recommendations.

FINANCE SECTORS

Mobile Commerce works vastly in finance sector including all big and major financial institutes, banks, stock market and share brokers. Whenever any user needs money or wants any sort of banking and finance related services, he/she can access the services or register services via voice calling or via Short Message Services (SMS) services. WAP based mobile handsets allow the user to access the official website of the institute.

User can transact money or transfer money, or pay the bill from its bank account using mobile commerce facilities. Banks also provide round the clock customer care services, which can be used any time through voice calling. Some customer care services are also provides non-voice services on mobile that is known as insta-alert facility.

While in the stock market, the user can access the stock market quotes and get in live touch with current trading