Vodafone India along with ICICI Bank today launched its mobile money transfer and payment service ‘m-pesa’ in Delhi, expanding the footprint in the Capital.

The company plans to rollout the service in Mumbai and Lucknow in the next couple of days, in a bid to tap the migrant population.

“We expect a small number of people to adapt this initially...if classical marketing theory is anything to go by usually about half to one per cent of people adopt a new product,” Subrat Padhi, Business Head (Delhi), Vodafone India said.

He, however, added, the company expects the product to go “viral” in the days ahead going by the kind of response it got in countries like Kenya.

“We clearly feel the initial experience will come by our push...point of inflection, there is a point when it becomes viral and people start doing it with word of the mouth,” Suresh Sethi, Business Head (m-pesa), Vodafone India said.

The service allows customers to transfer money to any mobile phone, remit money to a bank account, make payments for utility bills and deposit and withdraw cash from designated outlets.

The users need to deposit Rs 200 to register for the service and the company charges Rs 10 per transaction as convenience fee for payment of utilities. Apart from that, there are various slabs for transaction charges for transferring money.

The service will be available through 1,400 authorised agents and across 130 Vodafone exclusive retail stores in Delhi and NCR region.

Apart from Delhi, the service, which was launched in December last year, is currently available in Kolkata, West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Rajasthan and will be rolled out across the country in 12-18 months.

Besides Vodafone, other mobile operators such as Bharti Airtel are also offering similar services.

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