US-based payment company Visa has called off its mobile payment venture, Movida India, after Indian telecom operators refused to share their network. Visa had set up the company jointly with UK-based Monitise Plc to offer its customers mobile payment services.

Visa had already ted up with leading banks such as ICICI and HDFC and had been lobbying for the government to allow it to tap the unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) channel of telecom operators. However, major telecos refused to share their bandwidth and network with Visa, primarily because the telecos themselves are emerging as serious players in the mobile banking space. The entry of Visa was expected to further fuel competition in this space.