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

Friday, May 29, 2015

Easypaisa, a leading branchless banking service, claimed to have become the country’s third largest bank in terms of accounts. “We have over six million Easypaisa mobile accounts that make us the third largest bank of the country,” said Omar Moeen Malik, head of Easypaisa strategy at Telenor. Habib Bank Limited and National Bank of Pakistan, the Telenor official said, were the two banks ahead of Easypaisa.

Thursday saw Easypaisa, a joint venture between Tameer Microfinance Bank and Telenor Pakistan, launching Easypay: the first end-to-end Online Payment Solution to facilitate different payment options for online merchants and their customers. Malik said his company’s daily transaction amounted to Rs 0.7 million through 65,000 shops in more than 800 cities of Pakistan. “We moved two percent of GDP last year and would double this amount this year,” said he adding Easypay envisages a three-pronged payment mode: through mobile accounts, Easypaisa shops and credit cards.

Pakistan, he said, had 15 million mobile users, 30 million internet users, 20 million facebook users, over 2,000 e-commerce stores and Rs 3 billion ($30 million) annual volume of online transactions at present. Citing a study, Malik said, the volume of online transactions in Pakistan had the potential to balloon to $600 million by 2017. Underlining the importance of online transactions, the Telenor official said there was huge physical cash, around Rs 2-3 trillion, lying outside the banking system in Pakistan.