Movida India, a Visa-backed joint venture, ended a saga by dropping a plan for mobile payments, blaming operators for not providing network access, according to Economic Times.

The five-year-old firm has closed operations and Naushad Contractor, who is president and head of the 50-50 jv between Visa and Monitise, has left, according to sources.

The service was pitched as a wholesale service for Indian banks. In turn the banks would offer payment services to customers on their mobile phones, at least that was the idea.

Indeed, Movida struck deals with banks such as HDFC and ICICI but was unable to secure agreement with operators for access to their USSD channels, needed to deliver the service.

Movidia India is a joint venture between Visa Inc and Monitise, the struggling UK payment tech firm in which Visa Europe holds a stake it wants to sell (Visa Europe is a separate entity to Visa Inc).

Blaming the country’s operators is not a new complaint from Movida, which claimed it faced the same obstacle two-and-a-half years ago. Subsequently, the firm lobbied the government, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and telecoms regulator, without success. This time the setback appears fatal.