BJP, AAP have joined Vodafone's mobile money service M-Pesa, company executive says

CHENNAI: Both urban and rural mobile users may need a bit of convincing before they start using mobile money services but Indian political parties have readily adopted the technology.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are now on Vodafone’s mobile money transfer and payment service M-Pesa.
“The two parties joined recently on M-Pesa and are now accepting donations through the platform,” said Suresh Sethi, business head of M-Pesa at Vodafone.He did not detail the transactions or quantum of funds moved through this platform.
On Monday, M-Pesa went live in Tamil Nadu and is expected to cover the entire southern region by the end of next month. In the three months since its launch in northern states in December 2013, M-Pesa has signed up pilot projects to handle government-to-public transactions in states like Orissa and Jharkhand. Others include TABcab in Mumbai where cab drivers use it to make the daily payment to their operator.
At present, M-Pesa has over a million users, said Sethi. “On average, users are making 2-3 transactions in a month with average transaction value of Rs 300-400 per month,” he said. M- Pesa is offered in a tie-up with ICICI Bank but more banks may be added.
As per Reserve Bank of India rules, individual transactions are capped Rs 5,000 while not more than 25,000 can be transferred in a month.
M-Pesa’s offers to withdraw cash from designated outlets with a condition that the receiver of the cash must fulfil complete KYC norms with Vodafone.
“Statistically, a person travels 10-15 km in a rural area to access the nearest bank branch. This platform will enable us to reach out to a huge part of migrant population which sends money back home and doesn’t have a quick, safe and reliable way to do it,” said Sethi.