2 million expatriate Sri Lankans can now top-up airtel connections of friends & family living in Sri Lanka
TransferTo, the international mobile airtime transfer company, and Bharti airtel Lanka, a subsidiary of Bharti airtel, a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 19 countries across Asia and Africa, announced their partnership to empower over 2 million Sri Lankans living abroad to top-up their loved one's airtel mobile accounts back home.
With airtel's network now panned across the entire island of Sri Lanka, TransferTo's international airtime transfer network, comprising of mobile operators, merchants, and its online top-up service, http://www.transferto.com, now offers top-ups to airtel customers across the length and breadth of Sri Lanka.
"We're thrilled to launch our service in partnership with Bharti airtel Lanka," said Eric Barbier, TransferTo Founder and CEO. He added: "The service will greatly benefit Sri Lankans abroad who want to send low cost, high value gifts to their loved ones back home as a complement to their cash remittances or as gifts for special occasions."
Through this service, Sri Lankan expatriates who, for example, are in Canada and are Wind Mobile subscribers (a partner operator), may top-up their friends and family's airtel account by SMS instantly. The transaction is processed in real-time through TransferTo's secure platform. Other partners offering this service include STC (Saudi Arabia), Wataniya (Kuwait), Qtel (Qatar) and Singapore Post (Singapore). Pre-paid airtel customers will see their credit increase by the amount sent to them (for example: 100 Sri Lankan rupees) and postpaid airtel customers will see the transferred value deducted from their monthly bill.
Commenting on the alliance, CEO & MD, Amali Nanayakkara said, "Our partnership with TransferTo has enabled airtel to supplement localised top-up services by creating additional avenues for our customers to enjoy continuous service accessibility by transcending geographical boundaries. This has amounted to a co-creation of a favourable economic impact, thus enabling more Sri Lankans to stay closer to who they love".
For the vast community of Sri Lankans living abroad, this service will further add to the remittance of more than $4 billion back home by this population in 2010. Gifting airtime across geographies has, over time, become a novel and inexpensive way to complement expatriate Sri Lankans' regular cash remittances. International top-ups have, along similar lines, seen similar successes as they become integral in keeping in touch and reaching out to loved ones on special occasions such as birthdays or religious holidays.
About Bharti airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd
Bharti airtel Lanka (Pvt) Ltd is a subsidiary of Bharti airtel in India and commenced commercial operations of services in Sri Lanka on January 12, 2009. The company now has an aggregate of over 1 million customers. With its network footprint panned out across the country in less than 2 years from launch, airtel has emerged as Sri Lanka's fastest expanding network. Granted a license in 2007, in accordance with the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act No. 25 of 1991, it is also a registered company under the Board of Investment in Sri Lanka. Under the license, the company provides digital mobile services to Sri Lanka inclusive of voice telephony, voice mail, data services and GSM based services. All of these services are provided under the airtel brand.
To know more, visit www.airtel.lk
