State Bank of Pakistan, Multan's Chief Muhammad Ashraf Khokhar has said on Tuesday that there is dire need of expanding the banking services in Pakistan which is country of 190 million people but there are only 40 million accounts holders and of them only 5.7 million people get loans. He expressed these views speaking at a seminar on Branchless Banking that was chaired by Fareed Mughis Sheikh President of the MCCI.
Mr Khokhar said that the banking sector in Pakistan had come a long way since 1947. "With over 11,937 branches spread across the country, the banking footprint is well established. However, it is still insufficient to serve the rapidly growing population, most of whom still have little or no access to banking services," he said.
The SBP Multan's chief said that the State Bank of Pakistan, the regulator of the banking sector, realised the gravity of the situation and once the technology was available, the SBP grasped the opportunity to bring the "un-banked" lower income groups and rural population into the fold of banking.
He said that the solution to this problem was branchless banking that relied heavily on the IT, especially telecommunications technology. He said branchless banking was defined as the delivery of financial services outside conventional bank branches, often using 187,000 agents and relying on information and communications technologies to transmit transaction details - typically card-reading point-of-sale (POS) terminals or mobile phones.
"It has the potential to radically reduce the cost of delivery and increase convenience for customers. Consequently, branchless banking can increase access to financial services for the poor," he said. Mr Khokhar said that more than Rs 526.4 billion were remitted through branchless banking till December 31, 2015 and 1,31,00,000 people had opened their accounts in branchless banking system.
"The basic concept is, for those who cannot or do not go to the bank for logistical or at times even social reasons, the bank comes to their doorstep or at least nearby," said Fareed Mughis Sheikh adding that major services on offer were: (i) Deposits (ii) Withdrawals (iii) Remittance to various cities, where the receiver may not need to have a bank account (iv) Payment of utility bills (v) Payments for products/services provided by vendors who accept e-payments through branchless banking channels (for example Internet Service Providers). He said that a typical branchless banking model was beneficial for the bank, the telco, consumers and the economy as a whole.
Comments
Comments are closed.