While mobile platforms have been used by aid agencies to distribute electronic vouchers redeemable for cash or food, such as the UN World Food Programme’s (WFP) pilot project for Iraqi refugees in Syria, mobile money is still relatively new in this field. Aid agencies are, however, coming to realize the cost effectiveness, speed, and resilience that mobile money payments can provide in emergency situations.
Archive
Archive for Asia
Pakistan’s Shared Platform: An Interview with MCB and Fundamo
By: Paul Leishman: April 1st, 2010If you weren’t at Mobile World Congress, you would have missed a very interesting co-presentation from Qasif Shahid, EVP at MCB Bank and Aletha Ling, Executive Director at Fundamo. Qasif and Aletha provided an overview of MCB Mobile, which launched in June 2009 in Pakistan and have since gained some impressive traction, registering over 70,000 customers to date.
Something particularly interesting about the deployment is their decision to launch using a shared platform. To understand more about their approach, I recently had a conversation with Qasif Shahid and Mazahir Ali Sayeed from MCB, and Hannes van Rensburg from Fundamo…
Insights on Grameenphone’s BillPay: the Market, Model, and Agent Value Proposition
By: Paul Leishman: January 27th, 2010Recently I caught up with Azad Delwar Hossain, Head of Financial Services for Grameenphone in Bangladesh. Grameenphone launched a service called ‘BillPay’ in 2006, which allows customers to pay utility bills over the counter, or through an e-wallet. In this interview, Azad provides insights into all aspects of their model, but key three insights emerge that all operators deploying payment offerings should consider:
1. Ensuring right commission spread and loyalty of channel partner
2. How market conditions impact business models
3. The importance of trust
Globe Announces Big Change to GCASH Agent Network
By: Paul Leishman: January 26th, 2010Globe recently announced that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has approved their request to use Globe Telecom Sub Distributors as GCASH outlets. Building on Globe’s announcement to launch BanKO in late 2009, this announcement marks the start to what will be a busy 2010 for the team at G-Xchange.
The move to leverage Globe sub-distributors makes sense. For years, GCASH have used pawnshops, rural banks, and Globe Business Centres as cash in/out agents, but haven’t made an aggressive push to use any tier of their airtime distribution network. Globe has pursued this path until now for many reasons, but let’s explore three…
Tameer Microfinance Bank and Telenor Provide Insights on easypaisa
By: Paul Leishman: January 5th, 2010The 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. Our conversation covered three broad themes:
1. The structure of a mobile operator / bank partnership
2. Approach to agent distribution
3. Their product launch roadmap and plans to drive adoption of an e-wallet
Telenor Launches ‘easypaisa’ in Pakistan
By: Paul Leishman: October 17th, 2009Telenor Pakistan and Tameer Microfinance Bank yesterday announced the launch of ‘Easypaisa’, described as ‘a uniquely convenient and safe way for the people of Pakistan to carry out financial transactions.’ This is the latest chapter in Telenor’s strategy to offer financial services in Pakistan, which began in November 2008 with the purchase of a 51% stake in Tameer Microfinance Bank for USD$12.5 million.
It will be exciting to track the progress of Easypaisa in the months to come, but even from day one the service sparks conversation as the model looks more like Grameenphone’s Billpay service available in Bangladesh and less like other mobile money launches that have made headlines in 2009 from the likes of Zain, MTN and Vodafone.
Here are three main ways that Easypaisa differs from others:
The Rise of Mobile Money in Asia
By: Seema Desai: September 15th, 2009The Mobile Money for the Unbanked team has been keen to find out more about what is happening in Asia outside of the Philippines, or at least what the feeling was towards mobile money across the Asian continent. I have spent the last few days at the GSMA Asia Pacific Conference, which took place in Shanghai, China. This event is run by a committee of operators who set the agenda, invite speakers and host the event. The Conference attracts over 300 attendees with strong operator representation from across the region. For the first time at this event, which has been traditionally focused on roaming and interconnectivity issues, approximately a third of the agenda was dedicated to mobile money. In this post, I describe a few highlights from the event.
News Tracker
- 1. Vodacom South Africa launches M-Pesa
- 2. Easypaisa introduces donation service
- 3. Yu Cash offer international remittances from US and UK
- 4. Easypaisa introduces international money transfer service
- 5. Maroc Telecom Launches HomeSend
- 6. Bank of Philippine Islands and Globe Telecom launch cashierless payment service
- 7. Mobile Phone banking and insurance transforming the world
- 8. Mobile money’s innovation crisis
- 9. Safaricom's M-Pesa Users Rise to 61% in July From Year Ago
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