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.
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.
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.
Telenor has posted all time high cash flow globally and strong results in Pakistan after a solid final quarter in 2009. Telenor Q4 results announced that their Pakistan’s subscriber base to have reached 22.5 million. The net additions of 842,000 subscriptions during the fourth quarter are 77,000 more than the Q3 net additions. In the last quarter of the year, the revenue increased 9% over Q3 while EBITDA margins grew to an all time high of 28.4%, a whopping 28% growth over Q3.
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.
Before I discuss the unexplored potentials in mobile financial services (MFS) as mentioned in my last post on the same topic, let us analyze the services currently offered – mobile bill payments and mobile money transfer (domestic) by easypaisa. In this post we shall take a look at how are they different from similar traditional services, how are they seen in other developing countries and their growth and reach.
Mobile banking has undoubtedly taken the lead with the collaborative mobile banking model, where collaboration takes place between the carriers and the banks who can distribute the roles of the value chain amongst themselves. An example of this is ‘easypaisa‘ from Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Bank.
While browsing the easypaisa facebook fanpage, I got a chance to see watch a TVC, by far the best one I have seen so far. It is a Telenor commercial about an eassy on “The Future” written a by school going girl in early days of telephone.
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