By Telecom Lead Team: Bharti Airtel, through its
subsidiary Airtel M Commerce Services (AMSL), has expanded airtel money, a
mobile wallet service, to 300 key cities in India.
The national availability of airtel
money follows the success of service’s first phase of launch in Delhi NCR
and Chennai in 2011.
airtel money is a secure service that allows its
users to load cash on their mobile devices and spend it to pay utility bills
and recharges, shop at 7,000+ merchant outlets, transact online etc.
airtel money is the first mobile based service to
offer instant money transfer from an airtel money wallet to
another airtel money wallet and bank accounts. With this, customers
can now use airtel money to make payments and transfer money across
the country.
While an estimated 240 million people across India hold
bank accounts, more than 90 percent of country’s population uses cash to
pay for its daily needs. A majority of customers continue to rely on
traditional or time consuming methods like money orders and cheque remittances
when it comes to transferring funds.
The penetration of mobile telephony currently
enriches the lives of over 900 million people in our country and can facilitate
a paradigm shift in the way India transacts. We see the national rollout
of airtel money playing a pivotal role in accelerating mobile based
commerce in India and look forward to further extending the availability of
this service in deeper pockets of the country in weeks to come,” said Sanjay
Kapoor, CEO – India & South Asia, Bharti Airtel.
Airtel mobile customers can self register for airtel
money Express Account by dialling *400# from their mobile phones or sign
up for the service by walking into any of the 15,000 plus airtel
money outlets across the top 300 cities of India and submitting the
required KYC documents.
For airtel money Power Accounts, Airtel has
inked merchant partnerships with 1,800 brands including utility providers;
state electricity boards viz. BSES, Reliance Energy, Indraprastha Gas, telecom
(BSNL/MTNL) and insurance (LIC) and mutual funds, organized retailers (e.g. DT
Cinemas, Fun Cinemas, Megamart, Univercell, Apollo Pharmacy) as well as local
chemists and grocery stores who will now accept payments via airtel money.
