State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan

This post is based on an original post by Saad Khan at Green & White. Simply put, corporate social responsibility is more than sponsoring concerts or donating for worthy causes. It is active participation in long-term and sustainable development of the society in which these companies do business. Here’s more from S. Khan’s post:

Corporate social responsibility or CSR as it is fondly called is a relatively newer concept in Pakistani corporate sector. The international market is adopting newer and innovative ways to show that they care for the humanity. Pakistani CSR scene leaves much to be desired. I just went through this thoughtful article in which CSR in Pakistani corporate sector is discussed in ample details.

I think the concept of giving back to the community is developing in Pakistan. Corporate social responsibility is a little complex issue. If a company sponsors a sporting or performing arts event, it has short term effects. Whereas lets say, if a company launches a scheme aiming at poverty alleviation or educational improvement, then that is definitely a better investment.

I’ll limit my discussion to IT sector. Mobilink’s efforts must be applauded in this regard. The Mobilink PCO scheme is working quite well, thus providing employment opportunities to so many people. Their endeavor was lauded in a post on G & W, as it was a nice initiative. Recently NBP Karobar has joined forces with Mobilink in generating jobs for young Pakistanis. Telenor has also launched their PCO offering in cooperation with National Rural Support Program. Most of Telecom companies, especially Mobile operators are also working in many other fields like donation to hospitals, Schools etc which is commendable. It seems that they have accepted their CSR.

As far as supporting the Sports and Entertainment Industries of Pakistan, I think all the Mobile companies are up to the mark in these fields. These days you’ll notice that most of the sporting or entertainment events are sponsored by some telecom giant of Pakistan. So lets hope that these trends will continue in future too. I am waiting for the comments of our readers to enlighten us further about the CSR scene in Pakistan, especially within technology sector.

Related Links:

• Mobilink on CSR
• Telenor Website - Social Responsibility
• Telecom Futures - Telenor
• PTCL - Corp Social

This post in the mobile commerce series provides information about a new study which outlines how the banking and regulatory framework needs to adapt to encourage financial transactions by mobile phones and transform access to financial services in developing countries. This is from a new policy report ‘The Transformational Potential of M-Transactions’ , published by Vodafone in partnership with Nokia and Nokia Siemens Network. The report details new independent research by leading economists from Frontier Economics and Groupe d’Economie Mondiale as well as consultants to the World Bank. The full report, (2.1 MB pdf) can be accessed from a link on this page.

The report shows how these services provide the first real opportunity for many poorer people to get on to a formal “banking ladder” with benefits including reduced threat of crime, time saving and secure savings opportunities.

However, existing banking regulation are inappropriate for the growth of m-transaction schemes. Vodafone, Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks are calling for regulators to ensure they do not restrict commercial experimentation or limit the schemes to sub-economical scale. Key suggested changes to banking rules and regulation include:

• Review of deposit taking - define and control new ways of making deposits
• Access to the clearing system - to ensure that existing systems can handle the transactions smoothly
• Adaptation of ‘know your customer’ and anti-money laundering - creating safeguards and audit trails
• Interoperability of m-transactions schemes - to ensure fair competition

The report includes work from various investigators and researchers. Since the carriers have a vested interest in pushing for this, I would take the recommendations of this report with a pinch of salt. However some of the conclusions reached here are in line with other studies and from experience of other m-commerce trials and deployments. Standardisation and new rules are needed to help this transition to mobile phone based commerce.

Vodafone Foundation provides a good summary of the findings from this series of studies about mobile banking.

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