Vodafone India m-pesa head Suresh Sethi says over two million consumers use its mobile money service since the launch of M-Pesa in April 2013.
700 million people do not have access to conventional banking. M-Pesa empowers this section of the population gain access to financial services through mobile phone.
Vodafone’s m-pesa achievements
Vodafone’s m-pesa is available through 80,000 outlets.
M-Pesa runs on SIM card in feature phones and uses an operator menu to perform transactions. M-Pesa works on a simple USSD menu allowing access on simple phones; and does not require internet availability.
India is one of the most cash heavy economies across the world. Majority of the under-banked and under-served people have very limited banking touch points like ATMs, Bank Branches and Cards. In fact, 90 percent of the retail transactions happen in the form of cash.
M-Pesa is an innovative product designed for these under-banked and under-served customers. The users are customers who have no access to banks either because they do not have a bank account or live too far away from a bank branch. Majority of them are the migrant populations who have the need to send money home to their families.
Vodafone is driving financial inclusion amongst the unbanked and underbanked community through various tie-ups across the country; out of over 174 million customers, more than 50 percent (92 million) are rural base.
“We are looking at almost 30 crore migrants who move away from the villages and come into towns and cities to earn their livelihood. They clearly have the need to send money home for their families. Almost 70 percent of this money moves through informal channels which is neither safe nor does it save time,” said Suresh Sethi, business head – m-pesa, Vodafone India.
Card penetration is very limited in rural India. There is clearly a need for Financial Inclusion which arises from the need to safe and secure the savings, the need to remit small amounts at frequent intervals, and to avail the services like DTH, Electricity.
Vodafone mobile money strategies
Vodafone is entering into several public private partnerships to drive financial inclusion using M-Pesa among the unbanked and underbanked community.
Odisha MNREGA mandate
Tie up with Panchayati Raj Department, Government of Odisha to implement the first of its kind, mobile based disbursement of wages under MGNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme) in Odisha.
Under this arrangement, mobile retail outlets in each Gram Panchayat in Ganjam district act as Business Correspondent Agents to enroll workers and provide them with a mobile money account residing on their mobile. These workers are able to receive their daily wage payments directly through their mobiles and are able to easily withdraw cash from any nearby Vodafone M-Pesa retail outlet.
NRHM Mandate
Tie-up with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Government of Jharkhand to implement the mobile based solution to streamline the payment of healthcare subsidies to beneficiaries entitled under the Janani Suraksha Yojana operated by NRHM. This is being implemented in the Namkum Block in Ranchi district of Jharkhand.
IRCTC Railway Booking Tie-Up:
# M-Pesa Facilitates Online Railway Bookings On 139
# Ties up with Bharat BPO, the official Rail Sampark partner of IRCTC to enable customers book railway e-tickets from their mobile phone
The introduction of this service application will put an end to the long wait in queues at railway booking counters providing convenience to customers as they can now book e-tickets on the go anytime, from anywhere.
Is mobile money a true alternative for banking?
M-Pesa customers today are using our service for Money Transfers, doing DTH recharges and Utility bill payments other than airtime recharges. Vodafone is the largest banking business correspondent in India. Given the scale of mobile users in India, mobile banking has the potential to emerge as a game changer in terms of costs, convenience and speed of reach.
Baburajan K
editor@telecomlead.com
