Vodafone launches M-Pesa Pay app to facilitate easy digital transaction

The Dollar Business Bureau

Vodafone on Tuesday launched a feature on its mobilewallet application to enable merchants to receive payments aimed to cash in on the cashless transaction atmosphere post the Government's demonetisation move.

"M-Pesa Pay is a new feature which we're adding on to M-Pesa to enable ease of transactions between merchants and customers. M-Pesa Pay is really a merchants’ product," Vodafone managing director and chief executive Sunil Sood said to the reporters.

Sood said the new special feature will be a substitute for the capital-intensive PoS machines. Merchants will be required to download the application only once, which will swiftly make their cashless transactions with customers.

The country’s second largest telecom service provider’s mobile wallet M-Pesa has existed for several years now. Sood said the company had 8.5 million customers, who made their total transactions of Rs.860 crore in September 2016.

The Government's surprise decision to scrap Rs.500 and Rs.1000 notes on November 8 has encouraged everyone to adapt alternate transaction methods.

Mobile wallets including Paytm, Freecharge and M-Pesa have escalated their marketing activities following Vodafone’s announcement.

Sood emphasised Vodafone is confident of launching its Payments Bank before March 2017, and the new feature will offer cash out courtesy tie-ups with commercial banks. Once the Payments Bank becomes operational, it will work alongside that feature too.

The feature will enable merchants to 'pull' money into their wallet by sending a demand to the customer who owes them the money, the company said, pointing out that it can also work on feature phones using the USSD technology.

M-Pesa has already been facilitating several state governments for direct benefit transfers. It enabled cash collections at 450 locations and partnered with microlenders for EMI collections and loan disbursals.