Vodafone India in association with ICICI Bank on Wednesday announced launch of a
unique mobile money transfer and payment service, M-Pesa.
"India becomes the eighth country for rolling out of M-Pesa technology and we are very optimistic about this service," Vodafone India MD & CEO Marten Pieters said.
After the roll out, M-Pesa business head Suresh Sethi said the company would try to convince the government to use the platform for Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) for MNREGS,
social security pension and other cash transfer.
He said the partnership with ICICI Bank is purely on profit sharing basis.
The service is being initially offered in Kolkata, West Bengal, Bihar and Jharkhand through over 8,300 agents and would be rolled out soon across the country in a phased manner, the company said.
Primarily targeting transfer of cash by people, the company launched the service in this part of the country as two crore people have migrated from the eastern region to other parts of the country in search of jobs, it said.
ICICI Bank executive director Rajiv Sabharwal said M-Pesa could be used for greater financial inclusion in the country.
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