Public sector United India Insurance has become the first in the country to offer customers a facility to pay their premium through mobile phones, a top company official said on Tuesday.

The Chennai-based company launched 'M-Power'-- an application that can be used by the public to pay their premiums using a mobile phone.

"This is very aptly called M-Power. Empowering customers to make their premium payments through mobile phone", United India Insurance Chairman and Manging Director G Srinivasan told reporters, after launching the service.

United India, which collected Rs 8,179 crore premium in 2011-12, is the first insurance provider in both life and non-life insurance to offer this service, he said.

According to him, United India has about 2 crore customers. "I think in the next two years, at least 5 to 7 per cent of our customers will use this platform to pay their premiums," he later told PTI.

Srinivasan said the platform would also be used to educate people in rural areas on insurance.

He said they would also conduct a series of campaigns over the next few weeks promoting this concept.

When asked if they would also look into paying claims through this mode, he said, "That will be the next step".

Private sector lender Standard Chartered Bank is one of the partners with United India for collecting premiums through various modes, including cheque payments.

"We are key partners with United India Insurance Company. This year we are expecting a premium collection of Rs 4,000 crore (of the total insurance premium collected by United India Insurance)," Standard Chartered Bank Managing Director (Transaction Banking), Regional Head-Products, South Asia Amareesh Gulati said.

Besides providing this service to insurance companies, Gulati said they were also talking with some FMCG players to offer this service for their customers.

On the outlook for this year, Srinivasan said they are expecting a premium of over Rs 10,000 crore. "We grew by 23-24 per cent (year-on-year) last year and we plan to collect Rs 10,000 crore of premium income," he said.

He said they would focus on retail, personal, small and medium sector portfolio during this year.

As part of creating awareness on the insurance industry, Srinivasan said they had also planned to conduct insurance literacy programme in 75 schools across the country.