Though Nokia is facing stiff competition from local manufacturers in India, yet it has managed well to hold its fledging market share in India. Recently it came up with its own mobile payment service, Nokia Money in India and with the service; it was believed that Nokia could challenge its competitors. However, in a move which may surprise many, the Finnish cell phone giant has now decided to discontinue its mobile money business in India, which is one of the booming cell phone markets.

Nokia had teamed up with YES bank to enter in the business and later it joined hands with Union Bank to offer services such as money transfer and bill payments. Nokia soon came up with Nokia Money which had around 2 lakh subscribers and with its decisions to wrap up the services, these subscribers will be the first one to bear the impact. It is believed that subscribers will soon be informed about the discontinuation of the service and subscribers will be asked to use up the money deposited in their mobile money account.

Nokia will also refund the registration fee it collected from the subscribers and is going to approach the Reserve Bank Of India(RBI) to surrender the license it took from the apex bank to launch the service. There are reports that subscribers who are using YES bank and Union Bank services will not be affected as these two banks will take over the platform. On the other hand Nokia will bring in other player to help the banks to maintain the payment service.

Nokia’s move is further surprising considering the fact that mobile payment service is becoming an important tool of business users in India and three new mobile payment services were launched last month by service providers such as Visa, MasterCard, HDFC and Airtel.