ASAAN Mobile Account (A Revolution in Digital Affairs)

BOL NEWS

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN : As Salaam Alaikum. I am Faisal Aziz Khan, today I have brought for you an exceptional show on a topic which is bound to please you; your parents will also be happy, in fact every Pakistani will be pleased. Is Pakistan moving towards a direction that will lead to happiness and progress? Whenever we talk about technology, we think that we are only purchasing technology, not making/creating it and even when making, it is usually to do with those products relating to services only, and do not make any product that we can use not only for our own benefit but can also think about selling it to the world. It is a great achievement that today Pakistan has been able to make a significant product based on solid technology which has been accepted not only by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) who have granted their seal of approval, as have NADRA and PTA and this product is now available. Who will be able to use this technology? If someone is living in the desert without electricity, without water, without gas he can open his account in less than two minutes. Someone who lives on the mountains surrounded by snow and ice, without utilities, can save his earnings within less than two minutes by just opening his account and utilizing it to pay children’s school fees or remitting money wherever he may want. This is an exceptional event that has not happened anywhere else in the world. The cell phone that will be used is not a costly Smart Phone but just an ordinary and affordable by all cell phone used by people living in villages, deserts, etc. This is a revolutionary scheme; it is a respect for Pakistan and Pakistanis and today I have with me in the studio three main heroes out of a team of many heroes. On my right sits Mr. Ali Shah, CEO of iPath, a services company, usually such companies in Pakistan deal only in services but iPath was one of the main companies who made this project possible, Muhammad Tassawar Hussain CEO of i3 Pathfinder is also here with me and in front of me is Muhammad Salman Ali, CEO of VRG. Thank you all for being here today. Normally it happens that we air political news/events, we show rallies and demonstrations, huge hue and cry can be seen and you, our patrons, may get upset seeing such telecasts. But today we are having a programme showcasing progress and developments and before I talk to them let me show a package explaining how people can open their accounts, even someone, a common man who is uneducated can do so. He/she will just have to type *2262#, just remember 2262 to open his account.

You will have been amazed looking at the package. Now let me start with Salman Ali, CEO of VRG. Frankly, this is a time to celebrate. Unfortunately, somehow we are unable to celebrate many of our achievements, let alone appreciating or taking advantage from it. What is it that you people have done, where did you get this idea from?

Salman Ali: There is a reason behind every idea that is born, with us the reason was to try to financially include the huge population of Pakistan, it is unfortunate that today our adult segment which is about 60% of the population is not financially included. So there was a need for a platform where these people could easily, remaining within their limitation and resources, could be included financially. Thus was born an idea. We started thinking on how to give the people a such a facility on a cell phone which does not have a limit but only a feature phone without the benefit of even internet. Also let me tell you that in Pakistan, even today the penetration of Smart Phones is just 40% while 60% of the people still use feature phones. Just imagine, on that feature phone there is no internet, no mobile app, how will he open a bank account? Second, our banking system is very traditional. So we started thinking of devising a solution, a technological platform where the user will think that he has given just two pieces of information but what he does not know is that in the background all related information regarding his identification, security, etc. will be executed transparently, all happening in no time and within a minute his bank account will open in real time.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN: Ali Shah sahib. What is the contribution of your company in this project? I was just thinking that during the time of COVID, Pakistani freelancers did business worth Rs.1 to 3 billion but for some reason we were not able to celebrate them. Ali Shah, what role did your company, iPath, play in this product?

Ali Shah: Bismillah Ar Rahman Ar Rahim. Faisal, when we started work on the AMA, basically we learnt that not everyone possessed a cell phone in Pakistan, not everyone had a Smart Phone and that 60% of the population were using feature phones. If we could make an application for the existing population which has access to a bank account, this was the section we were going to serve only. We started thinking on lines that the USDD (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data) service which is available on every cell phone, for instance we use this to check our daily balance, subscribe to SMS packages, you press * or # and then use any other service. We thought that if we could use this then we could provide service to every cell phone user without anyone having internet connection, any other application, and you could use this service from anywhere. Our company, in collaboration with VRG and iPath designed the solution where any ordinary Pakistani using even a cheap cell phone could open his bank account within two minutes. It was our good fortune that the 187 million phone numbers in Pakistan are all geometrically verified, it now being mandatory for anyone wanting to buy a SIM to have himself geometrically verified. The main hurdle for a poor person wanting to open an account in a bank is that he is not even allowed to enter the bank premises, another problem is in the under developed or backward areas where there are no bank branches because it is not profitable for the bank to operate in those areas. So we thought why not to use the existing 187 cell phone numbers, with this in mind we started talking to the SBP, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and NADRA which has a most important role in this project.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN: Basically you had the trust of so many organisations, we will talk on this later. Let me now turn to Mr. Tassawar Hussain and get his intake. What was the role of your company i3 Pathfinder in this?

Tassawar Hussain: Thank you Faisal for having us today. All our three companies got together to collaborate and launch this project. Primarily i3 Path is the company which provides the infrastructure, those basic platform such as the hardware, software, connectivity, security, etc. we provide the physical and the software and being part of the Pathfinder Group, this was a collaboration by all of us. By just using the magic number i.e. *2262# anyone can now open a bank account. I will take this opportunity to share with you a few other aspects. This is the only service, rather this is the only company which is dual regulated, at one end we are regulated by the Pakistan Telecomm Authority and on the other hand we have the State Bank of Pakistan. And then with the likes of all the branchless banking players in Pakistan, all the telecom operators in Pakistan, this has become possible. So in all honesty we have all made history today, this is something that people will be taking advantage of for centuries as you so rightly said in your intro that people will not have to go to a bank branch to open an account, they will be able to do so from anywhere and everywhere without having an internet.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN: Wonderful. Today the State Bank is making policies very aggressively unlike in the past when practically no one was interested in applying technology. However, it is not only the SBP, this could not have been possible without NADRA which is one of the companies in Pakistan that has recognized and utilized technology very quickly and also weeded out deficiencies that were found. Recently it fired a number of people that were found to be involved in undesirable activities.

Without the collaboration of entities such as SBP, NADRA, PTA, etc. it will just not be possible to introduce such products. If they would not bother even hearing about such new products, no one would be successful, so I think you people can be said to be very lucky. I will be interested in hearing what magic you had, which ‘Allababa’ you had, what prayers did you recite, etc. because now based on your success many working as free lancers will start thinking about making new products and approaching the SBP, etc. How did you manage to have it approved by the SBP, how was it possible to approach the PTA and NADRA?

Salman Ali: Faisal, let me tell you that all this did not happen in a day, it was a long journey of more than three years. It is not as if we created a product in three months and launched it in the market. During the last 3 or 3.5 years we had to take all the relevant technical players on board technically and commercially, we had to sit down with all the technical mobile operators and finalized the modalities of the scheme, we had to overcome literally innumerable technical and regulatory problems, we had to undergo inspection two to three times each by the State Bank and the PTA. We had to go through all these processes and inspections after which we were able to obtain the commercial licence. Why did it take so much time to obtain the licence? The major reason for this is that for the first time in the history of Pakistan that a ‘many to many’ model has been introduced which enables any individual to go through any mobile operator and open a bank account in any bank of his choice. Please understand that this model did not exist at all in Pakistan, in order to introduce this model and validate it in Pakistan, no one can know the challenges and problems we had to face, through and overcome, bring in so many technical updates, thanks to our associated team in the company, like hardware requirements, other technological requirements/updates, we fulfilled all requirements.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN: Now that this product has been made, it will allow ordinary Pakistanis to open bank accounts and carry out day to day business, like paying electric bills, gas bills, etc. Just imagine, the possibilities of this unique product are limitless. I think this product could be sold to any country in the world, say in Africa and the Muslim countries. Your comments on this.

Ali Shah: There is something that we call ‘transfer of technology’. Today there are many countries where the overall situation is not as good as Pakistan’s. I would like to mention here that the policies of the SBP which allows us to speedily carry out payment systems is at par with the global trend, yet there are many countries in Africa, East Africa and Asia Pacific which do not yet have this type of technology, they do not even have a management system like our NADRA. So if we start talking with these countries in which are also included many that are Pakistan’s friends, I am confident that the entire platform that we have designed and created can be transferred to them.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN: That is wonderful to hear. Tassawar Sahib, can you please tell me what will be the price in case this technology is sold/transferred to another country? Mr. Ali Shah took me on a trip across Africa but refrained from mentioning anything about the price.

Tassawar Hussain: First of all, let me say that you cannot find any example of public/private partnership on such a large scale in which VRG has played the part of a nucleus. What they have done is create a platform which involves public entities such as NADRA, PTA and SBP and private entities such as banks, telecom operators, etc. such a collaboration or a case study cannot be found anywhere else. Once we are successful with our platform we can definitely go to other countries, such as Africa which you mentioned and other places where this does not exist. In any case there are many parties in our product and every party will be earning revenue out of this, so the more customers that we bring into the financial ambit, the more transactions they do, the more everyone benefits. This is just the beginning, even if I was to speak about Pakistan only, we have launched this product just on the initial level, which we call MVP or Minimum Viable Product.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN:  Mr. Salman. When you have made a product after putting in 3.5 years of hard work, what will be its next version? Any Pakistan who is living in say, the mountains or a jungle or an out of the way place, today is unable to even enter a bank premises but suppose he wants to take a loan (you do not give loans, I understand), will he be able to enter a bank after opening an account using your platform? Since your platform also involves many banks, will he get the honour and respect of being treated as a customer and enter a branch with the branch manger welcoming him?

Salman Ali: Before I answer, let me establish something important. Today, using this platform 20 million accounts have already been opened which means that transactions worth Rs.11.2 billion have been carried out. Second point which is very important is that out of these accounts, 82% are active accounts, where people are carrying out daily transactions and we have the record of every transaction being carried out, which the banks also have. This is the data based on which an individual’s credit history is managed which until today was never centralized. This is a very important point that this was never centralized until today. Every bank keeps such data of their customers but they never shared with others, in contrast we now have a centralized platform which is governed by the SBP and on this basis they will have a person’s credit history and the same person who you spoke of in your question will not even have to enter a bank for a loan. He will just have to dial 2262 from his phone, click on loan button and after the required data processing and data credibility process clearance, the loan will be disbursed into his account within 4 hours.

FAISAL AZIZ KHAN: Hang on. Let us go back a bit. You are saying that anyone living in the mountains, jungle, etc. will just have to dial 2266 to open his account, wait for four hours and apply for a loan? How much loan are we talking about?

Salman Ali: He does not have to wait for four hours, he can apply for a loan immediately after opening an account and the loan will be received within four hours. The loan amount is Rs.25000 or Rs.50000, we cannot exceed this because of limitation in the account and frankly the masses we are going to tap usually will have such requirement. I will add another fact, as we speak today in the border of Gilgit Baltistan and on the ships of coastguards our services are being used directly, and salaries of people who are working there are transferred into their accounts and from there, they are sending money to their loved ones through digital transaction.

FAISAL ALI KHAN: Zabardast. Mr. Ali Shah, your comments on the loan disbursement?

ALI SHAH: Today we have a platform through which we will have access to people’s credit history or use it for documentation of the economy. It is a matter of fact that many Pakistanis prefer to hide their money at home in strange places, such as in wardrobes, inside bed blankets, etc. to use as savings which will help them during tough times. Today he has an alternative where he can deposit his money without having to worry knowing that he can use this money by just accessing his mobile phone. Furthermore, there are platforms globally that, based on the behaviour of how you are using your cell phone, can use artificial intelligence and determine how much of a loan amount can be given to you.

FAISAL ALI KHAN: Sorry to cut in but the time of this programme is ending. Every Pakistani should feel proud learning about this product as ordinary Pakistanis will now be able to open bank accounts and also avail loans. Thank you very much to all three of you, Mr. Salman Ali, Mr. Ali Shah and Mr. Syed Tassawar Hussain.