PayMate, a leading Indian mobile payment company, announced Monday that it is entering the North American market, focusing on international money transfers for consumers without bank accounts.

The Mumbai startup’s software, which will be available in North America in early 2008, allows people to send money to others via mobile phones. PayMate hopes to tap into the multibillion-dollar U.S.-to-India money transfer market, the largest international money-transfer channel in the world, according to Merrill Lynch.

“We want to give people the ability to send more money and to be impulsive in their giving,” said Dhruv Singh, PayMate vice president of North American operations.

An Indian expatriate working in Silicon Valley could shoot off cash to a relative in Bangalore with the click of a button, Mr. Singh said.

India is the world’s fastest-growing mobile market with more than 120 million subscribers and 6 million new subscribers coming on every month. Some analysts estimate that mobile phone users there outnumber credit and debit card holders by as much as 2.5 to 1.

Mr. Singh said sending money over a phone is more convenient than using existing global money-transfer companies, such as Western Union, whose agents are not easily accessible for many rural Indians.

PayMate users in North America would need to first download free software to their phones and then open an account using a credit or debit card or a bank account. Recipients in India could pick up money at money transfer outlets, banks, or ATMs, have it delivered to their homes, or redeem the credit at stores.

They would have more options and convenience than they do with current money transfer companies, Mr. Singh said.

Founded in May 2006, PayMate claims to be India’s largest mobile payment company, accepted at more than 3,000 merchants and widely used online and over the phone.

But PayMate won’t be alone in the Indian mobile money transfer space. Bangalore-based mCheck and Redwood City, California-based Obopay also offer mobile payments in India.

And in October, Western Union announced an agreement with the GSM Association, a global trade group representing more than 700 mobile phone carriers. Western Union said it hopes to offer international money transfers using mobile phones by the second quarter of 2008.

Last year, PayMate received $5 million in a first-round funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Sherpalo Ventures.