ISLAMABAD: The branchless banking sector witnessed mixed growth trend in second quarter of this year to 101.6 million as compared to 100.8 million in previous quarter.
The number of transactions has registered a growth of 0.8 per cent while value of transactions for branchless banking in fact showed decline from Rs 526 billion to Rs 486 billion during the quarter under review. The average size of transaction also declined from Rs 5,219 to Rs 4,782 during the period.
Statistics about the sector have revealed that with such indicators, number of agents, number of active brancless banking agents, number of accounts and deposits in accounts grew during the quarter.
State Bank of Pakistan has said that there is a promising shift within the transactions from OTC to m-wallets. During the quarter, the ratio of m-wallet to OTC customer oriented transactions increased by 3%, reaching 34%, from 31% recorded in the previous quarter.
The customer oriented transactions witnessed a 10% decline in value, falling from Rs 318.5 billion to Rs 286.9 billion. This was attributed to a sizeable decrease of Rs 22 billion in utility bills payments, Rs 8 billion in person to person transfers and Rs 1.7 billion in G2P payments.
On the other hand, the cash deposited in m-wallets and wallet-to-wallet transfers exhibited a quarterly growth of Rs 2.2 billion and Rs 2 billion respectively.
With regard to market share in Branchless Banking (BB), Easypaisa still remains at top for variety of indicators, however, MobiCash – now called JazzCash – is fast catching up the market leader. For active mobile accounts JazzCash is in fact the leader with some 48% market share.
If we look at number and value of transactions, Easypaisa easily leads the competition with a good margin. JazzCash is second runner while UBL’s Omni stands at third slot. Interestingly both EasyPaisa and JazzCash lost market-share to UBL Omni and other players including UPaisa during the quarter under review.
For agents and active agents, Easypaisa leads the market with not much difference from JazzCash, indicating that EasyPaisa is leaving the door wide open. Going forward, it would be important to understand the needs of the low income segments to develop appropriate products for the target demographics.
Experts have advised that the focus should be on adding value to branchless banking channel and drive usage in addition to access. Though a few players are actively working towards this end, a concerted industry effort will be paramount in order to increase adoption of the BB channel for unprecedented advancements for financial inclusion in the country, they added.
