Mobile commerce company Beam plans to invest Rs 500 crore for expansion of its business across India by March, 2012.

"By March, 2012, we will invest Rs 500 crore for pan-India expansion of our business," Beam Chairman and Managing Director Anand Shrivastav told PTI.

The funds will come from oversees investors in the company, Shrivastav added.

Beam provides mobile payment services for electronically transferring money from mobile to mobile.

"There is no need to download any software for transferring money. The user just can transfer money or pay utility bills, grocery shop or mobile phone bills by sending an SMS, IVRS or through our website," Shrivastav said.

Under this mobile payment service, user need to register once with Beam and for the service, he should have money in his Beam account which can be loaded using a credit or debit card or a Beam recharge voucher.

User can transfer money from mobile to mobile or pay bills by send an SMS in the format set by the company or using an interactive voice response service and through the Beam website.

"Except Airtel, all mobile phones can be recharged using Beam service. We have an automatic system that recognises the telecom operator from the mobile number and recharges the phone in a couple of minutes from the time our system receives the command," Shrivastav explained.

Shrivastav said the company has a network of 50,000 retailers and 20,000 registered merchants till date.

"We make payment to registered merchants at every fix cycle. In case of travel tickets and big transactions, it is done the same day. For very small transactions, we do it within three days, excluding the day of the transaction," Shrivastav said.

Started in 2009, the company says it has over 50 lakh customers across 305 districts in the country where it is present. Shrivastav expects Beam to double its user base by March, 2012.