Having their own names printed on currency notes and coins has been the ultimate fantasy of rulers since time immemorial. If we observe the coins minted during last 1000 years, then we can observe that rulers across all periods have attempted to make their names immortal by placing their faces and/or names on currency tools. As rulers changed and kingdoms replaced other kingdoms, so did the names and faces minted on coins and currency notes.

But the irony is that, even after 64  years of Indian independence, there are some citizens who still feel the same, and they are not shying away from scribbling their own names or their loved ones on currency notes. And, then there are those who write phone numbers, messages and what not!

They might not be aware, but Indian Government loses crores worth of currency notes, as they are defaced by scribbling on them.

This time, the government is acting tough on this practice, and has issued notifications that starting from January 1, 2014, banks will no longer accept any currency note which has been scribbled and defaced.

Clean Note Policy by RBI

This current notification by RBI is in continuation with its Clean Note Policy, wherein they had directed all bank employees to stop stapling note bundles and writing numbers/names or any other thing on the currency notes.

As per the official Reserve Bank of India communication dated May 10, 2013, it has been instructed that,

1. Banks should do away with stapling of any note packet and instead secure note packets with paper bands,
2. Banks should sort notes into re-issuable and non-issuables, and issue only clean notes to public; and,
3. Banks should forthwith stop writing of any kind on watermark window of bank notes.

Writing on Currency Notes is Punishable in India

Few would be aware that scribbling on currency notes is a punishable offence in India. Under Section 35A of the Banking Regulation Act 1949, RBI has clearly mentioned that writing and/or scribbling on currency notes and distribution of such defaced notes is punishable and can carry penalty as well. But time and again, we regularly come across instances when people violate this rule.

In the past, newspapers and publications have consistently highlighted this issue and even shared stories how this practice negatively affects Indian economy and as a result thousands of crores of rupees are wasted every year.

We believe that growth and progress of a nation should start with us. Responsible citizens should be aware that such immature and irresponsible behavior will only bring our economy down and halt our economic progress. We request all our readers to spread this message and stop scribbling and defacing currency notes at all levels.

Fortumo, Estonia / US based mobile payments company has announced opening up of their office in India. In September of this year, Fortumo became one of the first mobile payments company to offer direct billing support for in-app purchases in India.

Fortumo currently has tie-ups with leading Indian telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and Tata Docomo creating a potential base of 530 million users for mobile app developers.

Given that India has one of the largest base of mobile users in the world, the country is expected play a key role in Fortumo's global expansion plans. Establishing local presence in India will help Fortumo take a local approach to one of the biggest emerging markets for online payments.

With it's presence in India, Fortumo wants to plug the huge lacuna currently present in Indian mobile payment market. Even though India has over 800 million mobile users, over 99% of the population can not pay for content using services such as Google Play or PayPal, due to extremely low number of credit card owners in India.

Direct Carrier billing not only allows easy payments for the users, but also allows mobile app developers to monetize their apps in a more efficient and productive manner.

Fortumo has made New Delhi as their Indian headquarters and have appointed Industry veteran Sanjay Sinha as the General Manager of Fortumo India. Sanjay Sinha has worked in the mobile payments industry for more than a decade. His prior experience includes work at Yahoo India, ACL Wireless and CellNext.

On his appointment as GM of Fortumo, he commented, "Monetization is the biggest challenge for mobile developers and Fortumo is ideally positioned to solve this problem. The mobile ecosystem in India is exploding with established companies setting up their mobile identity and hordes of new start-ups launching. My goal as the general manager for Fortumo India will be to secure a central role for Fortumo in this growing market."

Though, Fortumo's solution is focused on smartphones, given the high percentage of feature phone users in India. they have separately created a customized payment flow for use on feature phones. The solution automatically recognizes when a feature phone environment is being used and morphs itself to enable payments on phones without in-app payment capabilities.

Advertising is probably the biggest source of revenue in the world. One of the largest internet companies in the world, Google is, what it is, only on their advertising revenues. Besides that, we have the whole television industry that is running on advertisements. From TV to sports, everything has a source of revenue in advertisement.

With the advent of mobiles, another source of ad revenue was created for companies. According to Mobile Market Association, companies are warming to the idea of mobile ads and the mobile ads spend for 2013 is in fact around Rs. 300 crore. This is a huge jump from last year's Rs. 180 crore. Even the projections were around Rs. 250 crore which makes this industry a very lucrative one. This growth is going to continue by the looks of it and in no way looks temporary with the projection for next year is around Rs. 430 crore.

Tata Teleservices have now come up with a plan to offer free minutes of talk time to its users for watching the ads before making the call. This service will be offered with the help of; you guessed it right- an app.

A mobile advertising app to be precise named 'GET'. This app will be compatible with Android, Java, Symbian and Blackberry platforms. Also, it will be available for both GSM and CDMA. Tata Docomo users can download the app from the Android play store or the Nokia store.

The users will have to see an ad before making the call and each ad shown will give the user a free voice minute. The ad will not concur any data charges from the user and the users opting for the service won't be charged for any data while using Tata Docomo Internet.

Also according to officials- "The mobile users are not offered any ads if they are trying to make emergency calls, given the nature of the call being made. Also no ads are offered while making calls to toll free numbers, international calls or while in roaming in off-network locations."

This service has been launched in a partnership with mADcall Pvt. Ltd., a sister concern of Astute systems. Tata also has onboard a few companies to display their ad (their clients if I may say).

Now comes the biggest question- "Will people opt for it?"

As I see, it is apt for a particular demographic of school and college going students- the people who have the time to watch an ad and are short of money for the recharge.

I can see a lot of students sitting in a class, watching these ads and getting free minutes while the teacher is teaching. As for the people who earn well, this is simply an annoyance that they would rather avoid.

Another demographic might pop up that I don't know. It will be very important how this offering is marketed as well. If not done properly, many people might not even know about this service.

Tata will have a field's day trying to convince people to opt for it. The ads themselves can't be more than 10 seconds or more. In my opinion, no person is going to watch a minute ad for a minute talk.

If successful, this will open a new stream of revenue for the operators. It goes without saying that other operators will jump on the boat as well if they find it successful. With the low call rates, companies need to be creative about their revenue; and data, services and ads perhaps are the perfect way to go.

Eventually data costs will slide as well so either the companies will have to increase the cost of the calls or look for other sources. Tata might have found a gold mine, here but it will all come down to execution in the end.

Tata Teleservices have around 60 million users so it's safe to assume that ample amount of people might be lured to the call of umm… free calls.

What do you think? Will you watch a few ads to get some extra minutes?