Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Vodafone launches money transfer service 'm-pesa'

From : Western Times (Page 3)

Vodafone India along with ICICI Bank today launched its mobile money transfer and payment service ‘m-pesa’ in Gujarat, which is 12th state in the country to provide services.

The company plans to rollout the service in other parts of the country within couple of months, said Mr. BP Singh, Business Head - West, Vodafone India.

“We expect a small number of people to adapt this initially...if classical marketing theory is anything to go by usually about half to one per cent of people adopt a new product,” Brijesh Bajpayee, Business Head Gujarat of the company said.

He, however, added, the company expects the product to go “viral” in the days ahead going by the kind of response it got in countries like Kenya.


“We clearly feel the initial experience will come by our push...point of inflection, there is a point when it becomes viral and people start doing it with word of the mouth,” Suresh Sethi, Business Head (m-pesa), Vodafone India said.

The service allows customers to transfer money to any mobile phone, remit money to a bank account, make payments for utility bills and deposit and withdraw cash from designated outlets.

The users need to deposit Rs 200 to register for the service and the company charges Rs 10 per transaction as convenience fee for payment of utilities. Apart from that, there are various slabs for transaction charges for transferring money.

The service will be available through 2000 authorised agents and across 312 Vodafone exclusive retail stores in state. Apart from Gujarat, the service, which was launched in 11 state of the country has already 5 lakh customers registered under m-pesa service.

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