Fundamo, a Visa company and one of the world's largest specialist mobile financial service providers, has been selected by Monet, an independent mobile financial services company, to launch a mobile money network in Pakistan.
The platform, now approved by the State Bank of Pakistan, will be able to enable providers and partners that share a common objective, to accelerate the delivery of convenient, secure and affordable mobile financial services to the banked, unbanked and underbanked of Pakistan.
Bank Alfalah Limited (BAFL), the sixth largest financial institution in Pakistan, and Warid Telecom Private Limited (Warid) have teamed up to launch a new mobile financial services brand on the platform. The platform will enable BAFL and Warid to jointly offer mobile and branchless banking to its existing and potential customer base. Monet provides a managed service platform, agent management services and bill aggregation services to new financial institutions and network operators interested in entering branchless banking services with a faster time to market. Monet, a first of its kind provider, is creating linkages with existing deployments, financial switches, channels and networks to provide a standardised offering in the market.
Despite the growth of financial services the majority of Pakistanis remain unbanked. According to the Pakistan Access to Finance Survey, only 12 percent of the population has access to formal financial services (A2FS, 2012). Conversely, mobile penetration stands at nearly 70 percent (Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, 2013). A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group estimates that 35 percent of Pakistan's adult population will be using mobile financial services by 2020. Now is the perfect time to introduce new branchless banking services to Pakistan.-PR