Pakistan’s first and largest branchless banking service and a joint venture of Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Microfinance Bank, Easypaisa, has become the first mobile money service in Pakistan to become interoperable with the existing banking infrastructure by launching the Inter Bank Fund Transfer (IBFT) service enabling its customers to transfer funds between a number of Banks via the 1-link switch.
Easypaisa brings this revolutionary, first of its kind innovative service to both its Mobile Account holders and Over-the-Counter (OTC) customers. Easypaisa Mobile Account holders can now move funds from any Bank Account into their Easypaisa Mobile Account and vice versa conveniently and securely, thus overcoming one of the hurdles of getting funds into the branchless banking systems. Once the funds are in the Easypaisa Mobile Account, customers can proceed to use the most convenient and secure bill payment, money transfer or airtime recharge service in the country through the Easypaisa Mobile Account on their mobile phone.
For the OTC service, any customer can walk into any of the Easypaisa shops and deposit cash directly into any Bank Account. With 40,000 Easypaisa shops in more than 750 cities and nearly 6 million unique customers using Easypaisa services each month, banked customers can deposit cash into their Bank Accounts without having to go into their Bank Branches. Customers will only need to approach an Easypaisa shop, provide their CNIC and theirbank account number to use this service.This Cash Deposit facility will be available at Easypaisa shops while they are open, often late into the night and even on weekends.
“It is great step in the Branchless Banking industry, a revolutionary development which will act as a catalyst for the robust growth of the branchless banking industry in Pakistan,” said Nadeem Hussain, President and CEO of Tameer Micro Finance Bank. “Easypaisa now connects the unbanked directly to the banking infrastructure by enabling them to send and receive money on their Mobile Accounts and through OTC services. Almost 80% of the population in this country is still unbanked and Easypaisa is working day and night to achieve financial inclusion of the unbanked people of Pakistan. In line with this ambition, Easypaisa’s IBFT service provides a platform to the unbanked class to connect with the traditional banking infrastructure, which is likely to boost the mobile banking culture in the country.”
Expressing his view regarding this new service, Yahya Khan, Chief Financial Services Officer, at Telenor Pakistansaid, “We am extremely proud of being the first branchless banking service in Pakistan to move towards Interoperability and connect to the 1-Link switch for fund transfers. All the current closed-loop mobile money services in Pakistan have to strive and move towards open-loop systems where customers can move funds between bank accounts and branchless banking accounts and vice versa. The opening up of Easypaisa agents for Cash Deposit into other Banks is similarly a unique service we’re introducing to meet an unserved need out there. We believe that Banks and Branchless Banking services complement each other in Pakistan and can work in harmony to serve everybody in Pakistan.”
