At the time of launch of easypaisa, many people wanted a service they can host from their mobile phone. I see mobile accounts as the service that lets you do that. It is not any over the counter service like bill payments and money transfer but a virtual Bank Accounts opened for Telenor subscribers to access from their own mobile phones at any time.
Easypaisa gets ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certification for Information Security Management System (ISMS) for mobile banking services. The PR received from Telenor Pakistan give the details.
Here is a pictorial coverage of easypaisa Mobile Account blogger’s meet-up held last Thursday. Read the complete event story here.
Courtesy: Farhan from SenseApplied.
In the bloggers meetup with Mobile Account, Ali Abbas from Tameer Bank highlighted that it was the branchless banking regulations from State Bank of Pakistan that eased mobile banking in Pakistan. With this I went on my hunt for the regulation document and studied to know its details. In this and coming posts I shall look at the regulatory preservative of Mobile Banking as governed by the SBP’s Brachless Banking Regulations 2008.
A ‘Meet the Product’ bloggers session was arranged for the launch of Easypaisa Mobile Account yesterday evening. Around 30 bloggers from different arenas attended the event. The session was so full of energy that it not only remained meeting the Mobile Account but exploring its features, its reach to the unbanked and discussing the unmatched success of easypaisa in just four months from its launch.
Guest post by Ali Abbas
It has been a long time since I have blogged which happened due to a number of factors and the most contributing one was lack of time! Well guess what? I am finally back and it is no surprise that the Telecom – Student scenario is still at the exact same spot where I left it. Upcoming telecommunication graduates are all worried and tensed biting nails and spending all their time in cursing the world for being so mean and not generating enough job opportunities! Yesterday I met a university junior after a long time and all he could talk about was the troubling thought of job shortage in Pakistan and complaining about all the options being “saturated” and dried up.
Technology convergence, wireless panorama’s fast and furious change, SMS, MMS, voice call, internet in the pocket, data throughput boost, high speed internet and video call, that was all I could think of while finalising my final year project proposal. But today I write about something I didn’t think will go mobile so soon. Forget me, who thought that one can pay bills, transfer money and use many more services from their own mobile phones, anytime, anywhere.
Yes it is possible today, Telenor and Tameer Bank have taken the easypaisa suite one step ahead by introducing ‘Mobile Account‘ in Pakistan.
Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest event for all things mobile lasted for three days from 15-18 February. Apart from developments in applications, new OSs, smartphones debut, alliance formations and much more, the 2010 also event featured two full days of mobile money.
Earlier the mobile money was limited to just a few hours side session, but with the growing global focus on mobile banking, this year it comes bigger. Paul Leishman from GSMA’s mmublog shares his review of the event.
Easypaisa’s success has not only being lauded nationally but like in the cross-post from the mmublog.org it is also being appreciated internationally. It is now being reviewed on CCN Edition along with other mobile banking initiatives. It mentions that EasyPaisa is the first venture in Pakistan to do this; 89 percent of Pakistan population is unbanked. It also indicates about the Easy Paisa plans to launch a Mobile Account service that features savings and withdrawals in near future.
Growth of Pakistan telecom industry took a hit in recent months because of economy and regulation of SIMs. Even though the number of new subscribers slowed down and the revenues per user remained low, Pakistan telecom industry has shifted to a whole new set of services which provide value and convenience in ways not possible before. One of the interesting trend of 2009 was the rush to offer financial services via mobile phones aka mobile financial services (MFS). These services include transactions such as remittances (person-to-person payments), payment of bills and others commerce enabled by mobile/cellular technology. This post provides an overview of MFS in Pakistan.
Cross post from Mobile Money for the Unbanked
The launch of Pakistan’s ‘easypaisa’ by Telenor and Tameer Microfinance Bank was one of the most exciting deployments of 2009. Targeting the massive unbanked segment and initially supported by a network of 2,000 agents, it’s not surprising that easypaisa is seeing early signs of success. Having been live for less than two months, almost 250,000 customers have used the bill payment or money transfer services initially available and there are positive signs that repeat business will be strong.
I recently caught up with Arif Qayyum from Telenor and Abbas Sikander from Tameer Microfinance Bank to learn more about their approach.
We yesterday mentioned in our tweet about Mobilink President Rashid Khan hinting on the leapfrog to 4G bypassing the 3G. He also tells about the broadband ‘infinity’ expansion plan and their plan with booming mobile banking concept. The complete story is hereunder.
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