The customer base of branchless banking industry would become larger than conventional banks in the next five years, as it would have opened 50 million mobile accounts by 2020, bankers said at Pakistan Payment Summit 2015. "Smartphone will make it happen, as prices of them have decreased to Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 {each} in Pakistan," said Nadeem Hussain, President, Tameer Bank.
He said this at first-ever 'Pakistan Payment Summit 2015' organised by Total Communications in collaboration with the State Bank of Pakistan and 1-Link. Foreign speakers from different parts of the world also addressed the large gathering of banking industry. The technology-driven mobile banking would help bringing-in worth Rs 3.2 trillion transactions into the banking system from outside the system right now. This will also help documenting the undocumented economy, Hussain said. He said a fund of Rs 100 million had been established for two pilot projects for the projection of digitalized banking industry.
He said the mobile banks were also working upon the project of attracting remittances into the country from Pakistani living abroad.
"At present, a person living abroad faces five levels of intervention to send money home via conventional banking system. The mobile banks would do it in just one-step and help attract larger remittances," he said.
"Conventional payment system is going to be challenged and changed into digitalized payment system...cheques, pay-order, and money orders are going to be changed into digital banking," he said.
Tashfeen Khalid Niaz, Chairman, Sindh Revenue Board, said they had fully digitalized and automated the tax-paying system to facilitate taxpayers.
"Taxpayers can pay taxes via ATM, mobile phone, and computer system now," he said. He said the government amended the Constitution in 2010 to empower provinces to collect sales tax. With this, "Sindh has become the largest sales tax collecting province with only 24 percent of the total population of Pakistan living here. The province of Punjab accounts for about 55 percent population," he said. "The digitalized system is helping documenting economy," he said and urged the central bank to make payment system easier.
KC Wong at Insite MY System, Malaysia, urged bankers to modernise cheques to facilitate their customer.
"Banks should add a line on bottom of cheques to offer option to customer whether they want to make the transaction through digital system. It normally takes three to five days to clear a cheque through conventional system," he said. He urged the central bank to amend relevant laws to speed up cheque clearing system.
Sanjiv Purushotham, Senior Business Leader, Business Expansion, Non-Traditional Business in the Middle East and Africa, Mastercard, said they had upgraded their technology with the passage of time. The Company has started its journey with introduction of plastic money and has moved on to digital transaction where a card does not require.
Shahzad Shahid, CEO, TPS, said the share of debit cards into all the plastic cards stood at 93 percent in Pakistan. He said there were 37.8 million banks accounts in the country, 25 million debit cards, which had up from 9.5 million in 2011. Cathy Corby Lannuzzelli, Senior Vice President, Global Client Success, i2c Inc, spoke at length on 'innovation and Customer Experience'. .-PR
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