Beam mobile financial service making forays into villages

Claimed to be first of its kind in the new age payment methodology, Beam mobile infrastructure, that provides a complete set of financial products on cell phone devices for banked and unbanked population, has reached 5 million customers in less than two years of launch.

After acquiring Reserve Bank of India's certificate of authorisation in November 2009, Beam has made a major foray especially in rural areas.

Subscribers not having bank account can purchase Beam pre-paid cards to load money in their beam subscriber account and perform a variety of transactions. It is available in the denomination ranging from Rs 1 to Rs 10,000.

It has currently spread its business in 27,000 villages across the country, Anand Shrivastav, Chairman & Managing Director of the Rs 200 crore company, told PTI.

"We aim to cover the entire 6 six lakh villages of India by the end of 2013," he said adding the company hopes to enlist 25 million people for its services by that duration.

Giving details of the service, Shrivastav said Beam is a mobile payment system that reaches millions of unbanked Indians through the most convenient mobile platform.

It helps in mobile, DTH recharge, travel tickets booking, paying utility bills and movie tickets among others, he added.

Shrivastav said "we plan to add services in insurance and micro-pension subject to approval from RBI and PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority)".

Catching up with the modernisation trend, Shrivastav said 60% of its customers are in the age group of 16-24 years. Besides, a large numbers of elderly people are also availing its services mainly for kirana (grocery) purposes.

He said Beam services can ba availed via two modes of delivery, Tech Savvy subscribers and non savvy walk-in-customers.

Stating that the aim is to empower rural unemployed, Shrivastav said the company recruits 'sahayaks' who have at least secondary level of education besides working knowledge of english.

"Presently we have appointed 10,000 sahayaks in 305 districts in 13 states," Shrivastav said.

"We aim to appoint one sahayak in each of the 6 lakh villages of the country by 2013 end," he added.

"According to the RBI's own assessment out of 6 lakh villages in the country at present only 30,000 of them are serviced by banks," he said adding "we are including this huge mass of unbanked people to simplified money servicing".

Shrivastav said this mode of M-commerce services are popular in Kenya in the name of "M paisa", Philippines "G cash" and Europe "Luup".