Vodafone rings m-pesa in Gujarat

From : DNA

Ahmedabad: Vodafone, the largest telecom subscriber of Gujarat, has launched a facility to have digital money. Forms of cash and plastic money will soon be replaced by digital money or mobile commerce, called m-pesa, by Vodafone.
On Monday, Vodafone India and ICICI Bank announced the launch of m-pesa, a unique mobile money transfer and payment service in the state. M-Pesa is the trademark of Vodafone. It empowers the un-banked and under-banked sections of the population gain access to fi­nancial services via the mobile phone.

M-pesa effectively leverages the combined strengths of Vodafone's global expertise in the domain of mobile payment and significant distribution reach in India plus the security of financial transactions provided by ICICI. This service is available across 170 tehsils, 29 dis­tricts through 2,000 specially trained authorised agents and across 312 Vodafone exclusive re­tail/mini stores across the state.

First ecosystem has to be creat­ed, said Brajesh Bajpai, the busi­ness head of Gujarat, Vodafone India. "We have not launched a product or service. But it is a con­cept for consumers. For this, we will have to educate consumers, retailers and aggressively market this service," he said.

At present, transaction charges on m-pesa are less compared to credit card charges. Charges over m-pesa transactions are not fixed forever, said BP Singh, operations of director west, Vodafone India. "As and when the volume of m-pesa transactions increases, there are high chances of transaction charg­es coming down. At present, we have launched a service to help one transfer money whenever re­quired," he said.

This service is launched cater­ing to the need of the masses, said business head of m-pesa, Voda­fone India, Suresh Sethi. "Today, more than 95% of the villages in India do not have any banking out­let. Financial inclusion is a na­tional priority and we believe that with m-pesa, we now have the ideal offering to facilitate the same across the country in com­pliance with all applicable regula­tions," he said.