India Post has partnered with Mobile payments platform, Beam Money to roll out its payment services in 29 post offices across Uttarkhand including Dehradun, Almora, Roorkee, Nainital, Rishikesh, among others. While the deal period or the financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed, Beam Money said that this partnership will allow users to avail services like mobile, data card, DTH recharges, utility payments, rail, air & bus tickets, cinema tickets and E-commerce payments in 29 post officers across Uttarkhand. Note that this service does not require users to have a credit, debit card or net banking facilities. Beam currently offers a prepaid mobile wallet which provides services like remote payments, telecom and DTH recharge, rail, air and bus bookings, cinema tickets, utility payments, among others. The company claims that it had earlier partnered with 100 Post Offices across Tamil Nadu to provide air ticketing services to customers. This service essentially is the reverse of providing digital payments. However, this is an interesting offering for two reasons -- Firstly, the credit and debit card penetration is low in rural regions and net banking is also not widely used in these geographies. And secondly, India Post has an extensive distribution network across the country, which means that customers will not have to travel long distances to avail these services. Offering a bouquet of services in a single location where services such as eCommerce payment, mobile, DTH recharge, air ticket reservation are not easily available could help Beam to target both rural and urban population. It will be interesting…
