NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, March 17, 2014

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has adopted a multi-pronged and long-term strategy to address financial exclusion through structured policy and regulatory actions besides market-development interventions.

While addressing the 7th International Mobile Commerce Conference organised by Total Communication here on Thursday, Ashraf Mahmood Wathra acting governor SBP said branchless banking is supporting SBP’s financial inclusion programme to expend the financial services network towards the millions of unbanked masses as we feel that our bank’s branch network of almost 12,700 is insufficient enough to serve them.

“Despite phenomenal spread of banking business in Pakistan, we have a long way to achieve digital financial inclusion in the country,” he added. The SBP has also formed the national branchless banking consultative group, which draws representation from branchless banking industry players including banks, mobile operators, and technology service providers, he said and added that “this group is actively working on different protocols including agent code of conduct, agent sharing models, interoperability schemes and consumer protection framework, etc.”