The GSMA’s Mobile Connect service is now available to more than 800 million consumers in India via six operators.

Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Idea, Tata Teleservices, Telenor and Vodafone will offer the service, which aims to enable consumers to create and manage a digital identity via a single login, effectively doing away with the need to remember multiple passwords.

“Today’s launch marks the culmination of a year-long collaboration amongst the Indian MNOs to deliver a single, intuitive and secure mobile-based authentication solution that enables hundreds of millions of consumers to safely and seamlessly access online services on their mobile devices without worrying about privacy or passwords,” said Mats Granryd, director general, GSMA, who hosted the launch event.

Since its introduction at Mobile World Congress in 2014, 42 operators in 22 countries are implementing Mobile Connect, making it available to nearly 3 billion consumers.

This is up from February, when the industry association announced that the solution was now available to some two billion customers.

Mobile Connect works by employing the user’s unique mobile number, combined with a unique PIN for more secure use cases, to verify and grant online access.

It will be commercially used by a range of digital service providers covering areas such as commerce, banking, health services, media and entertainment and travel and hospitality in India.

Additionally, business-to-business Mobile Connect services have been deployed and will help prevent fraud installations and fake application downloads.

The GSMA said that Indian mobile subscribers will initially be able to access Mobile Connect services, including login and self-care apps, from their operator’s website and in the future, anywhere they see the Mobile Connect logo.

According to GSMA Intelligence, India has 12 operators and 1 billion mobile connections.

Mobile Connect has also been trialled in two EU Member States, Finland and Spain, to establish proof-of-concept for cross-border authentication of eGovernment services and online interactions between businesses, citizens and public authorities.