The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) launched the Asaan Mobile Account (AMA) scheme at the central bank’s headquarters in Karachi on December 13, 2021. The soft-launch event was attended by the Governor and Deputy Governor of the State Bank, CEOs of some of the largest banks in Pakistan, chairmen of the National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), officials from Virtual Remittance Gateway (VRG) and other officials from Central Bank. The AMA scheme is the embodiment of a rare cooperation between commercial banks, mobile network operators and VRG, which is at the centre of making this cooperation possible. AMA aims to bring 50 million unbanked people in Pakistan under the banking net.
Ms. Faiqa Naseem
Respected Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Chairman PTA, Chairman NADRA, Deputy Head of British High Commission Karachi, Chairman VRG Group, presidents of financial institutions, distinguished guests; ladies and gentlemen, Assalam-o-Alaikum and good afternoon. My name is Faiqa Naseem and I’m from the Secretariat of National Financial Inclusion Strategy, and on behalf of State Bank I welcome everyone to the Asaan Mobile Account soft launch ceremony.
Before we begin, I would like to request Mr. Shoaib Salim for a recitation from the Holy Quran.
(Recitation from the Holy Quran)
Jazak Allah. Ladies and Gentleman, today is a historic day, as SBP is launching the Asaan Mobile Account scheme. This is a unique scheme that is especially designed to financially include those unbanked segments that have no access to a bank branch or internet services. To speak more about this, it is my honor to invite Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan for digital financial services, financial inclusion, and information technology, Ms. Sima Kamil to please give her welcome remarks.
Ms. Sima Kamil, Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan,
Dr. Raza Baqir, Governor State Bank of Pakistan, General Bajwa, Tariq Malik sb, Chairman NADRA, CEOs of banks, Ikram Sehgal sb, Chairman VRG, colleagues from State Bank, members of the media, Assalam-o-Alaikum and good afternoon. First of all welcome and thank you so much for coming here today. Today is a very important day in the history of State Bank, we’ve waited for this day for quite a while. Today we are here for the soft launch of Asaan Mobile Account (AMA). I would explain why we are referring to it as a soft launch because right now we are making a broad media plan which will be launched at the national level in the next two months, but we wanted to inform you all about this initiative. In our financial inclusion strategy, there is a huge barrier: access in branch access, everyone cannot access a branch, and internet access which a lot of people do not have. We have 50 million adults who do not have any banking facility and AMA is going to change this. We would like to extend a special thanks to PTA and their senior management which is present here. PTA has a vital role in this, and it is the first time two of the licensing authorities issued a license to a third-party service provider, because there is a role of cellular mobile operators and 13 branchless banking providers which are present here. This wouldn’t have been possible without NADRA. They showed generosity and have kept a reasonable price for this, and secondly, the information filled in the background is provided by NADRA. Third-party service provider Ikram Sehgal sb has been very patient and worked hard throughout the process. Then there are CMOs (Cellular Mobile Operators), the representatives of which are present here today. We have a national financial inclusion strategy which is a flagship program, and AMA is a big part of it. The challenges that we face in financial inclusion are touch points; we have a lot of branches but not everyone has access to them. The documentation is cumbersome for an average person or a woman, KYC is also difficult. Technological enablement is very scarce, customer awareness and literacy are also some of the challenges, and so we’re taking this ahead as an overall strategy. There is a lot that we are working on, some of which I will give a brief detail about. The steps we’ve taken towards this are: 1) We’ve created a Digital Financial Services Group which of course not only has payments, it has innovation, policy and payment services. 2) We’ve created platforms for payment service operators and payment service providers. 3) There is a fintech facilitation desk. 4) The most important and futuristic one is Raast, which is our instant payment system with world class quality, Raast is a cross-cutting platform. Everything else that we are doing, Raast complements and enables it. All these things are complementary. We’ll be setting up our innovation office, a digital bank framework which is very important is also nearly ready and we would be launching it very soon, hoping you would have a lot of interest in it.
Let me talk a bit about AMA. It is special because it targets the low-income segment. The next 50 million which we call the last mile sometimes are the unbanked Pakistanis. We’ll show you a demonstration video about how you can open your AMA account. The USSD code is *2262#. You’ll be able to open your account from any mobile phone and any mobile network even without access to the internet. We have 187 million biometrically verified mobile phone subscribers, they’ll be able to open this account with the same ease as they can check their mobile credit. This Asaan Mobile Account is the first step, inclusion doesn’t only come with an account. The bankers sitting here can verify that an individual needs three things from a bank, simply put, one – they need transactions, second – they need saving and investment avenues and third – they need availability of financing. The first one, which we call usecase, has already been worked on a lot but we still have a long way to go in savings and in financing.
The message I would like to give to the branchless banking providers and generally banks today is that if you want to work for the unbanked, to give your customers something and also make it profitable for you, you will need to work on savings and the lending side. We have been working on payments and transactions for a long time now. We’re signing an MoU today for the same purpose, the CEOs of branchless banking providers here will sign it. Under this, development of more use cases will be done, it is your commitment, a complete network and agent level interoperability for digital transactions, and lastly AMA is a self-government framework in which you would make rules for yourself and for your engagement and implementation, these are the three main objectives of the MoU and the journey will start today. Lastly I’d like to thank all of you this is a very exciting journey for all of us and State Bank is always willing to work with you at every step of the way in however way we can. Thank you.
Ms. Faiqa Naseem Moderator
Thank you, Deputy Governor for sharing an overview of Asaan Mobile Account scheme and its objectives. We will now show a video to give a brief demo on the Asaan Mobile Account scheme.
Mr. Ikram Sehgal Chairman VRG
Governor State Bank, Deputy Governor Sima Kamil and I would like to mention others in State Bank who were part of this long journey, and sometimes a very frustrating journey. Samar Husnain, Mr. Noor Muhammad Nadeem, and I would especially like to mention here Sohail Jawad. I think the Governor has been telling me for some time and I agree with him now, that he provided, let us say – the open-field running space which has turned a lot of things around for Pakistan through the State Bank of Pakistan, and I think I need to congratulate all the staff of the State Bank. I would also like to mention somebody who is not here, but he encouraged me a lot, Mr. Abdul Hafiz Sheikh when he was Finance Minister. He did try to encourage the PTA and also the State Bank to bring the scheme together as soon as possible.
I would like to mention that this is a unique thing which has been brought about by Pakistani talent which is unique in the world. I don’t think, except for one country not many have the scheme of many-to-many telcos to many banks. India has the scheme, but it doesn’t have a real payment scheme with it. We have a full-fledged payment scheme. So this is a first, and congratulations to both SBP and PTA for this, but all this has been possible and let us not forget NADRA. If you had not had this identity-base, if you had not had something that you could refer back to immediately, all this would not have been possible. So what does this lead to? This leads to the fact that Pakistan is at its best when there is teamwork – teamwork within institutions, and teamwork between individuals. Congratulations, Chairman NADRA for having provided that base to us.
My son is not here, he has been a part of this. My daughter-in-law has been encouraging me, although everybody went and told them that this was a fruitless scheme in which there was no money to be made but they stood by it, the family stood by it. They said, okay – let us keep persevering. I must tell you the encouragement I got from the State Bank, each and every individual in State Bank and I would particularly like to mention Sima Kamil, – there were times when I said I’m giving up, but she said no, you’re just around the corner. Thank you, Sima.
When you have people supporting you, there are a lot of people who try to pull you back. In Pakistan, that is a specialty – they don’t try to go on their own merit, they go and try to pull other people’s legs so they can go out on their merit. I would like to mention here that I’m very grateful to both of the telcos, particularly somebody who is not here, Amir Ibrahim from Jazz, because Jazz was the first one that came and stood by us and the rest came one by one. It took them some time but it was only because of Jazz. I would like to mention Ali Naseer because he was our point of contact. Thank you, Jazz. Thank you, Amir Ibrahim.
I would like to mention here the banks. We went and signed up with the bank of which I was a director for 15 years, Bank Alfalah first, and a lot of people went to the various banks over the last two years. They made an agreement with us and not one bank broke that agreement. For the last 18 months, the banks stood by us. Thank you to all the banks.
I have talked about teamwork, cooperation, coordination and support. What cannot Pakistani talent do? We can go anywhere. People do not realize what this financial inclusion means think about women empowerment. Think about drawing the women into this scheme. The person who always has dealt with cash, and very little. How many women have credit cards, or debit cards? Now, for the first time it is happening.
From various sources that we have gathered, we normally know that women have 18 percent of bank accounts. Under the AMA scheme, women have a 32 percent share, which is a great rise from 18 to 32 percent, which means more and more women are coming into the scheme.
Something came to my mind, the words Roti, Kapra aur Makaan. Fifty years ago this was a terrific slogan but it had no meaning because Pakistan has never been a famine country – this area throughout history, whether it was the Mehrgarh civilization, the Indus civilization, the Mughal civilization this area has never faced famine. Yes, people have died of hunger, but not on the scale that they died in Bengal or in Bihar etc. But Makaan, it was an elitist hope. Now with the Roshan Apna Ghar program and with the AMA scheme, for the first time, the poor have an opportunity to own a home, which is tremendous thing that you have given them, that dream of 50 years ago. Roti, Kapra aur Makaan is now becoming a reality 50 years later. And I think that is a very major achievement. One of the personal things that I want to share with you. My 14 year old granddaughter is called Amani, it is quite a coincidence. AMA and Amani – Amani means peace. The other thing is that 50 years ago to the day about 3 o’clock in the morning, I went into an attack near Chhoron a ridge called Sanoi ridge, we didn’t expect to come back because we were less in numbers, we survived, I’m here, fifty years later. I got a battlefield promotion, the rank of major. My company was named Sehgal Company. Fifty years later I think it was worth living to see this day. Thank you again, State Bank of Pakistan.
Ms. Faiqa Naseem
Thank you for your remarks, Sir. Now, I would like to invite Chairman NADRA Mr. Muhammad Tariq Malik who has been a valuable partner of State Bank of Pakistan on promotion of digital inclusion in the country.
Chairman NADRA, Muhammad Tariq Malik
Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. Mr. Raza Baqir, Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Ms. Kamal, Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan, General Bajwa, Chairman PTA, Ikram Sehgal, CEO of VRG. It is indeed my singular honor and pleasure to be part of a joint initiative between State Bank of Pakistan, Virtual Remittance Gateway and PTA for account opening anchored in secure, trusted and robust e-KYC provided by a National Database and Registration Authority. I congratulate the State Bank of Pakistan that is introducing Asaan Mobile Account scheme that has been adopted under the National Financial Inclusion Strategy Steering Committee. This will allow anyone with a basic phone to open a branchless banking account through a unified USSD code without internet connectivity. So, I’m pleased to learn that VRG, licensed electronic payment gateway and third-party service providers undertaking the State Bank of Pakistan, announced on 26th October 2021the Asaan Mobile Account scheme. AMA has achieved 1 million plus accounts, 11 million transactions, worth over Rupees 6.2 billion turnover prior to its commercial launch today. Hence, user acceptance test was a big success, the data show.
NADRA basically is an enabler of market-creating innovations. It is a technology arm for not only the federal government of Pakistan, but the State of Pakistan. So my job is to enact an ecosystem that creates market-creating innovations that I feel is the real role of the state. For me, innovation is something not general, but specific and specialized, and hence investment in market-creating innovations drives economic, social, and political well-being. The reason behind inconsistent development in fragile states, especially in our country is a conventional mindset that subsides the interest of public.
The newer strategy that we adopted in NADRA is that we’ve spent a lot of time in enhancing the State’s capacity, strengthen ministries, departments or agencies or their operations so they can deliver services we’re already doing that and we will keep doing that, but I think it is time that we see things from a citizen’s perspective and their eyes, the service delivery from the state. That is why this initiative where we are seeing service delivery from the lens of the citizen, from the eyes of citizens, became my passion and I said, okay, we will talk. We will work with SBP and any third-party service providers. So my friend Mariana Mazzucato, who is author of ‘Value of Everything,’ says ‘to add public value, you leave the big ideas to the private sector which you are told to simply facilitate and enable, and rest will take care of itself.’ So when you create a social or public value, the money follows through. By leveraging on our robust identity database NADRA has opened up its platform to regulate entities in both public and private sectors. Few countries in the world have a robust and advance national ID ecosystem. Pakistan is proudly one of them and NADRA is the backbone of this ID ecosystem. As a government technology organization, NADRA has always enabled an eased service delivery through its identity database.
NADRA provides the following three critical services that have enabled and accelerated Digital Financial Inclusion in Pakistan. One is e-KYC and digital onboarding, second is digital transformation initiatives, lots of initiatives, since I took over my second stint as Chairman, we have been rolling out electronic succession certificate, power of attorney, online visa, lots of applications. The third is public service delivery. By using NADRA’s national identity platform, account creation and transactions have become effortless. Previously, banks and telecom companies, for account opening and SIM issuance respectively had to individually conduct KYC compliance for each customer, and that involved filing of lengthy forms, references, background checks, etc. With the involvement of NADRA, we would no longer need that because of NADRA’s identity platform and services such as verisys and biosys, bio-verisys, e-KYC compliance and customer’s on boarding have become quick processes, resulting in lowering the cost of the operation, doing the business and the operation for the aforementioned entities. I was looking at the data before coming here and for past five years, we have done more than 80 million verifications of one-to-one accounts and 95 million verifications through XML which is the third-party method. So totally 175 million transactions it’s not a joke for e-KYC verification services. Similarly, as Sehgal sb said this is an innovative pioneer solution. NADRA is interested in rolling out solutions where we become the global benchmark global champion, pioneer. In the start when we first launched contactless ID verification application, which was a complex algorithm, I was shocked with the crisis of confidence in this country that nobody believed that we indeed became the first country in the world, which has rolled out contactless ID biometric verification. It took some time, everyone kept asking if we actually were the first ones. Then Arab News broke the news that no, indeed Pakistan has done it. A few weeks back, the European Union invited me and I broke this news at an event with the European Union in Paris, and now the service that was tested on 62,000 people is still not highlighted on our media the way it should’ve been, as Pakistan became the first country in the world which has introduced through its Pak ID mobile app, providing contactless smartphone biometric verification services. We have tested this on 62,000 overseas Pakistanis and it is working very well. All you have to do is take your camera and take the fingerprint photograph with your camera and it will, on-the-fly verify your fingerprint. We are also testing a new algorithm for facial recognition. Five banks nominated by State Bank of Pakistan have adopted this technology in a pilot phase in September 2021 before a countrywide rollout in all banks. We also want that we become the pioneers and that we are recognized. We launch new products that the entire world appreciates. The banking sector can leverage on this latest service to further improve its digital on-boarding for customers at an even lower cost. After the rollout of this service, we have an overwhelming number of telcos, insurance companies and young entrepreneurs who want to make similar type of applications. As I mentioned at the start of my speech we want to establish a market-creating and market-enabling platform. I feel this is exactly what state institutions are supposed to do, to add public value by providing effective and integrated platforms. This is the frontier of digital Pakistan, the rest are just slogans. We need to set aside the bureaucratic mindset, we need to experiment, we need to fail, we need to learn from mistakes and constantly improve by learning through mistakes. This initiative is a humble step in that direction. So I congratulate all of you, and please provide us feedback. NADRA under my chairpersonship, we are hungry for your feedback. We don’t mind negative feedback by the media because it helps us to actually improve our product. So in a nutshell, government organizations like NADRA, State Bank of Pakistan capacitate both public and private sector for innovative ventures based on customer-centric approach. When the government and its institutions adopt a perspective of public well-being, I believe only then the social contract strengthens and citizens enjoy the true spirit of an effective government – government of the people, by the people. Thank you very much.
Ms. Faiqa Naseem
As Madam Deputy Governor mentioned, PTA is an equal stakeholder in the development of the Asaan Mobile Account scheme. Chairman PTA, Major General (Retd) Amir Azeem Bajwa, Hilal-e-Imtiaz could unfortunately not be here in person as he is traveling abroad, but we’re delighted to be joined by senior representative, Mr. Muhammad Naveed, Member Finance PTA. We are also grateful that Chairman sb has shared a pre-recorded message for today’s event. I would now request my team to please play that message for us.
Maj Gen (R) Amir Azeem Bajwa, Chairman PTA
Governor State Bank of Pakistan Mr. Raza Baqir, Deputy Governor Ms. Sima Kamil, Heads of commercial banks, CEO VRG Mr. Ikram Sehgal, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is indeed my privilege to virtually address the launching ceremony of Asaan Mobile Account in Pakistan. With the launch of target oriented National Financial Inclusion Strategy in 2015, the Government of Pakistan further committed to strengthen the digital economy system for payments and financial inclusion. Role of PTA as one of the key implementers of the NFIS resulted in PTA and State Bank of Pakistan teaming together. This led to the first ever joint regulatory framework for mobile banking interoperability in 2016. PTA and State Bank of Pakistan also worked with relevant stakeholders, including banks, operators and Pakistan Mobile Number Portability (MNP) Database or PMD to provide CNIC mobile pairing verification to facilitate digital onboarding. With a huge population of Pakistan being unbanked, with low digital literacy, the AMA concept was conceived. AMA scheme was designed with the objective to provide easy, swift, secure and cost-effective channel for accessing financial services with complete interoperability among the operators and financial institutions. This scheme also has a broader objective of financial inclusion in the country, which is at the heart of all efforts of the government for a growing, stable and documented economy. I believe that this scheme would also play a pivotal role in mainstreaming gender in the economy, thereby improving their economic and social status. We expect that the AMA scheme will go a long way, as the ubiquitous financial service will now be available and accessible to over 187 million biometrically verified SIMs and subscribers, which is a huge market to tap. I would like to congratulate the State Bank of Pakistan, commercial banks, technical service providers, VRG and CMOs on successfully launching the AMA scheme. With digital financial services still evolving in the country, launching of AMA scheme was not easy. I must thank State Bank of Pakistan and all other stakeholders for their full facilitation. I thank you all.
Ms. Faiqa Naseem
Now, we will be moving towards signing of the MoU amongst 13 participating banks. Let me share how we will proceed with the MOU signing. I will now be asking each president of Asaan Mobile Account scheme participating bank to come on stage and sign the electronic document we have set up on this tablet. After you’ve signed the document, kindly stay on the stage for a group photo. While the presidents are signing the MoU, the audience members will also be able to see it live on the screen behind me. Now I will begin to call upon the presidents of AMA partner banks, in an alphabetical order to sign the contract.
First, I would request the president of Allied Bank Limited Mr. Asim Basheer to sign on behalf of Askari Bank Limited; President Bank Alfalah Limited; President FINCA Microfinance Bank Limited; President First Microfinance Bank Limited; President Habib Bank Limited; President JS Bank Limited; President MCB Bank Limited; President Meezan Bank Limited; President Mobilink Bank Limited; President Telenor Microfinance Bank Limited; President U Microfinance Bank Limited and President UBL Bank Limited.
Thank you very much to all the worthy dignitaries. Kindly stay on the stage for a group photo.
Thank you everyone. It is now my honor to invite the host of today’s ceremony, and chief guest for the occasion, Governor State Bank of Pakistan, Dr. Raza Baqir to please give us his keynote address and share his vision for Asaan Mobile Account scheme.
Dr. Raza Baqir, Governor State Bank of Pakistan
Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim. Chairman NADRA, in his absence Chairman PTA General Bajwa, our Deputy Governors, especially Ms. Sima Kamil who has worked a lot on this. Our other supporters who worked on this, the presidents of banks and Mr. Ikram Sehgal from VRG and other guests, Assalam-o-Alaikum and welcome. I’m delighted for your presence here today on the soft launch of this very important scheme called Asaan Mobile Account. The three main objectives of today’s soft launch are, firstly, to create more awareness, this Asaan Mobile scheme that we launched with the cooperation of all the stakeholders is for Pakistanis who have difficulty accessing any bank branch, this scheme is for their ease of use. This is a very simple way of opening a bank account. Like it was demonstrated in the video, you need to text a USSD code, and you’ll get the option to open your bank account. The most important part of this is, it was not possible till date to open your bank account in these 13 banks just by dialing *2262#. The next unique thing is you just need a simple mobile phone to open an account, you do not need a smart phone for this, you also do not need internet access, as this runs on SMS and cellular coverage. So the areas in Pakistan where there is no internet coverage, or the people who do not have enough resources to use internet connectivity, opening a bank account is now doable for them as well. The account that is opened up after dialing *2262# is the level zero account. On that account you can have transactions up to 25,000 PKR on a daily basis. As this scheme is targeted towards people who do not have access to any bank account as of yet, the transactions limit of 25,000 PKR per day would be enough to fulfill their payment needs. Additionally, if they want to use their account for further functionality, they can upgrade it from level zero to level one. For this, they’d need to access any nearest agent of these 13 banks and get a biometric verification for the upgrade. Once they get the biometric verification done from a branchless banking agent, the account limit is then raised to 50,000 PKR per day, and any restriction on account balance is also removed. The foremost purpose was to have a simplistic soft launch so we can send a message to the nation that now it has become very easy for you to open an account. The 13 banks mentioned in the video are all a part of this scheme.
The second purpose was to tell everyone that digitization, especially for financial inclusion, is only possible if the government and private sector work together. I’d like to especially thank the government agencies for their cooperation with the State Bank, as this would not have been possible without their cooperation that we could develop a framework through which you can open an account by dialing *2262# in the blink of an eye. I’m especially thankful to the Chairman of NADRA he especially made time to come here today for this event – not only for his support and cooperation for AMA, but also for our other initiatives towards digitization, one of which is remote biometric verification. To open further accounts, banking applications in mobile phones will have a way of onboarding their customers from wherever they are, with their apps. When we requested the Chairman for this, the kind of enthusiastic response we got, I’m grateful for that. Along with this, PTA we have a very long-term cooperation with PTA not only in this initiative but in other initiatives as well in which we have worked together and I am very grateful to them as well.
In addition to the public sector, we have representatives from the private sector as well, all the banks, as well as VRG. I would like to give this message that this is a very good example, to improve digitization in the country, we need to work together with cooperation between the public and private sector. In today’s event, we have representatives from the private sector – and this is a good reflection of how we can work together towards this goal of digitization. Lastly, the third purpose of this event was to appreciate and thank all the banks participating in Asaan Mobile Account scheme. The MoUs that you have signed today will help with the growth of this scheme further. We have launched the scheme today specifically to bring attention to how rapidly the accounts will open and how the scheme will succeed, a major factor in this would be on how you take it forward. The self-governance framework that we have established in this – that Ms. Sima mentioned – the basis of it is, we are hopeful that the participating banks and VRG will take this forward together. I’ve been told that HBL representatives will take a lead, so I have high hopes from HBL that with your direction, Mr. President, HBL would bring in more use cases. You have to give this message to people on how they can fulfill and replace their cash needs with an AMA account, and how they can accomplish this. You are the private sector, you are much better at it than the public sector. So I’d like to request you to take this forward through your self-organizing or self-governing mechanism – so a common man gets the message that not only is this easy to open but also very easy to use and is also beneficial for him/her.
Another extremely important part of this would be the media campaign. We will start a mass media campaign as well but to the banks and VRG, I’d ask you to not wait for that campaign to start because you already have been integrated. I’d like to request the banks to work together and send this message through the media. After today’s event, if people get this message through different media outlets that this is possible through these 13 banks, this will result in a very positive outcome, as people need to be constantly reminded in today’s age. In our target of financial inclusion, if we compare our situation with other countries, there are certain areas in which we have not yet reached our potential, one of those areas is the financial inclusion of women. And this is something shocking. If we look at similar countries i.e. Saudi-Arabia in the Middle East, Malaysia, Iran or Turkey, we see that financial inclusion of women in those countries is better than in our country. Looking at only one parameter of statistics which is account ownership, we see that it is much bigger than ours. We need to ponder upon the reason for this, because women constitute half of our population, and they can contribute significantly towards our economic prosperity. If anyone wants to contribute to our economic prosperity, it is necessary for them to have access to the banking channels. I know a lot of banks are directing their efforts towards this, I’d like to invite all of the banks because Asaan Mobile Account has now made it even easier to increase their efforts towards inclusion of women in this scheme. Being banks, you all would know it much better than I do on how to bring a customer onboard and how you can reach out to them. According to our estimates, when we first brought branchless banking model in Pakistan in 2016, we were one of the few countries that came up with that pioneering approach. When we introduced it, we had around 65 million accounts at that time in the entire country. In June, 2021 we had a total of 136 million accounts. One of the main reasons for this increase in numbers during this period is how rapidly branchless banking accounts were opened. In those 75 million new accounts, half of those were branchless banking accounts. Now for these 13 branchless banks there is a new venture for them with the Asaan Mobile Account. We’re going to take forward the momentum we generated. One of the challenges that we faced was, the accounts were opened but were not being regularly used, so now because of this new channel, you can have multiple transactions between multiple banks and accounts because of the interoperability. The banking industry now has this opportunity. When branchless banking was introduced, a big wave was generated and then there was moderation in its use, it is not used as much as we’d like it to be used. Similarly the opportunity of Asaan Mobile Account can be used to increase use cases, the statistics of accounts in use are to be increased.
Lastly I’d like to share our estimate on how many people in Pakistan are excluded from our financial systems. According to our estimates, 50 million Pakistanis are not using our financial systems, and they are fulfilling their needs through cash. Our goal is to decrease this figure every year and this is a challenge for all of us. I’d like to tell you with complete confidence that any step you take towards decreasing this number, State Bank of Pakistan will support you every step of the way. Take leadership in this, give us any suggestion you have, and I have full confidence that if we work together like we are launching the scheme together today, we will definitely succeed in achieving our target. Thank you so much!
Ms. Faiqa Naseem
Thank you Governor sb for sharing your vision of Asaan Mobile Account scheme. With this, we move towards the close of the ceremony. With the official soft launch of the AMA scheme today, we have made a giant leap towards transforming the digital financial inclusion landscape of Pakistan. I would like to thank everyone for their participation in today’s event. (Applause)
