In an another initiative to enhance the availability of banking facility, Vodafone India and ICICI Bank have launched a mobile-based money transfer and payment service that will allow access to mobile-banking to near 700 million people across the country who are still "unbanked" with no access to conventional banking.
The service called M-Pesa was first launched in Kenya in 2007, was released on April 17 in India.
Vodafone said the service will be first provided in the eastern regions of the country in its initial phase, including Kolkata and West Bengal, with 8,300 agents.
Later, the service would be extended to the rest of the country, CNN reports.
In the M-Pesa system, "M" stands for 'Mobile' and "Pesa" stands for 'Money' in Swahili language.
To avail this service, the customer has to sign up and register their personal mobile phone number and deposit money into the linked account at an agent store. The agent store could be a mobile phone shop, a gas station or a supermarket, the report said.
Moreover, to send money, the customer will input the recipient's mobile phone number, the amount of money to be sent and a security code for protection, it added.
To withdraw money, the receivers have to visit an M-Pesa agent or can also request a withdrawal through his or her mobile phone.
Once the request is raised, both the receiver and the M-Pesa agent will receive a confirmation for withdrawal, which instructs the agent to give the customer cash.
According to the report, bills can be paid and mobile talk time can also be bought through the platform.
-With inputs from ANI
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