PANJIM: M-Pesa, Vodafone India’s mobile money transfer and payment service, has begun to make inroads in the Goa market since its launch in October 2013.
Speaking to the media, Ishmeet Singh, business head, Maharashtra & Goa, Vodafone India said “We are witnessing month-on-month growth of 20% since the launch of M-Pesa in Goa.”
When asked whether the M-Pesa user-base is small, Singh said, “It is low at the moment, but the service kind of grows on you once you experience it. So as more and more people try it the numbers will surely grow and so will the value of transactions.”
Majority of the transaction (almost 40 per cent) are happening in the bill payment and utility category (DTH recharge, prepaid recharge etc); 25 per cent in Vodafone postpaid bill payments; 20 per cent in money transfer and 15 per cent in prepaid recharge.
It has been observed that M-Pesa customers are not only using the service to recharge their own Vodafone connections but also the connections of their family members irrespective of the service provider.
A critical element to the success of M-Pesa is its access to the subscribers and Goa already has 450 agents (38 per cent in rural) apart from the 24 Vodafone stores spread across the State.
M-Pesa is a service which empowers the unbanked and under-banked sections of the population gain access to financial services via the mobile phone. But Goa already has about 800 branches spread across the state with 30 per cent in rural areas. “So Goa for us is a sender market, where workers from outside Goa and tourists send money back home,” revealed Singh.
We are also working on convincing the Goa government to use M-Pesa for disbursal of social scheme funds directly to beneficiaries.
