Mobile Banking Accounts Increase to 1.8 million

 

Mobile Banking Accounts Increase to 1.8 million

The number of mobile banking accounts showed a remarkable growth of 25 percent during July-September 2012, crossing 1.8 million mark, according to a Branchless Banking Newsletter released by the State Bank of Pakistan on Wednesday.

Branchless banking (BB) customers conducted almost 31.5 million transactions worth Rs139 billion during the quarter. The average size of each transaction was Rs4,420, while the average number of transaction per day rose to 0.349 million during the three months.

The accounts’ activity level also improved considerably on the back of significant growth of 84 percent in level ‘0’ accounts and 7 percent in level ‘1’ accounts.
It may be pointed out that transaction limits for level ‘0’ and level ‘1’ accounts are Rs15,000 and Rs25,000 per day, respectively.

The State Bank in its newsletter also said that bills payments and mobile top-ups remained the dominating activity during July-September 2012 with 45 percent share in total numbers, followed by person to person (over the counter) fund transfers with a share of 38 percent.

Bulk payments mostly by agents topped, among others, by 41 percent share in total value transacted during the quarter followed by person to person fund transfers with a share of 34 percent.

Agent Network:
Agent network of the branchless banking is quite strong. It may be pointed out that the BB service providers are trying to increase their linkages with microfinance institutions as loan repayments of Rs646 million were collected through branchless banking agents during the quarter.

The growth expectation in coming quarters is fairly high, as the existing two branchless banking players are increasing their scale of operations and two banks namely Waseela Microfinance Bank and Askari Bank Limited have launched their branchless banking services under the brand names of “Mobicash” and “Timepey”, respectively.