KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan in collaboration with UK Aid hosted a Branchless Banking Conference at Karachi.
The conference aimed to escalate required collaboration among the relevant stakeholders for proliferation of Branchless Banking services inside the country.
The conference was attend by participants from banking sector, Mobile Operators, Technology Companies, Agent Networks, Donors, Government and Regulators. Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen was also invited to present the Telecom regulator’s perspective on Branchless Banking, said a handout issued here on Saturday.
On this occasion, Chairman PTA said that on a global scenario, almost 4 billion people are unbanked-with more than two-thirds of the un-banked population in the world’s low and middle-income countries. However, evidence from countries like Brazil, South Africa, India, and Kenya strongly suggests that there is rapid popularity of these new phenomena we call as ’branch less banking’.
He said that in response to transparent policy and regulatory apparatus, our telecommunication market has observed liberalization, greater private sector participation and competition. Mobile sector is now a sector dominated by private players competing strategically on new technologies, pricing and customer services.
He said that Branchless banking is somewhat an elusive promise of the new fast evolving ICTs that financial service providers have been eagerly embracing. We know that financial services are based on mutual trust between providers and clients and I look forward to branchless banking in Pakistan not as an alternative, but as a key supplement enabling traditional branch banking to reach out to new client segments in various geographies, a priority for us in pursuit of fullest possible financial inclusion, According to the World Bank study, only 12% of the adult population of Pakistan has access to formal banking services.
He elaborated that recent statistics of Telenor’s Easy Paisa service could assist in identifying the kind of opportunity that exist. The service has crossed over 6 00,000 utility bill payments and moved nearly to PKR 1 billion on Money Transfer. This really is a huge mark of potential and success within a short span of time. On the similar ground, MCB was recently nominated among the top four best mobile money services category for Global GSMA Mobile Awards.
Three parallel optical fibre networks in the backbone, state of art technology in the access and core networks, fibre to tehsil H/Qs are available. This huge telecom infrastructure and ample information capacity is available to licensed and regulated financial service providers to devise and introduce innovative cost effective means of introducing new segments of banking. The high population density of mobile in Pakistan is also becoming a success of technology driven thrust in branchless banking.
The PTA, he said, was closely working with the State Bank of Pakistan on the draft of ’Third Party Mobile Banking Regulation’ which would be finalized soon. It would connect all banks of the country through cellular operators for mobile transactions, he added.
He ensured that dedicated team of professionals would come up with all-exclusive regulatory environment to flourish this much required technological and financial combo for our nation
