Vodafone to offer M-Pesa services to WaterHealth India

Telecom services provider Vodafone on Thursday partnered WaterHealth India (WHIN), a wholly-owned subsidiary of US-based, health-focused developer and manufacturer of innovative water purification and disinfection technology WaterHealth International Inc, to facilitate the latter's cash collection process across 450 locations in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

WHIN’s business model involves setting up of community water systems (CWS) called WaterHealth centres (WHCs) within underserved communities through public-private community partnerships.

Currently, WHIN manages its cash collection through an in-house team of collection executives, who are exposed to risks as they carry large amounts of cash while traveling through public transport.



Through this partnership, WHIN plans to address its cash collection issues with the help of M-Pesa, Vodafone's mobile money transfer and payment service, whereby Vodafone's distributor sales executive would visit WHIN’s WHCs and collect physical cash from the operator managing the centre, load M-Pesa balance (equivalent to the amount of cash collected) to the operator’s mobile number from where it can be remitted in the form of e-money to the WaterHealth account.

“We will continue to use this service as we expand our presence in other parts of the country to achieve our goal of serving 100 million consumers by 2020,” Vikas Shah, COO of WaterHealth International, told mediapersons.