KARACHI: Easypaisa is remained on the number one position for having 9.1 million accounts and with 46 percent share in total branchless banking in the country, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said.
The SBP in its review of branchless banking for October – December 2016, said that the major three players are competing with each other to capture the BB market share. The player-wise ranking in accounts did not see any major change as compared to the previous quarter, as Easypaisa remained the top contributor with 9.1 million accounts, followed by Jazzcash and Omni with 7.9 million and 2.4 million accounts, respectively.
“The remaining players need to put their efforts to give financial services to the underserved people as their total share in BB accounts further dropped by 2 percent over the previous quarter,” the central bank said.
The SBP said that industry showed growth in key indicators during the quarter Oct-Dec 2016. Significant rise have been observed in number of transactions, number of accounts and average deposits per account increasing by 21.5 percent, 18 percent and 17 percent, respectively compared to previous quarter.
During the current quarter, BB transactions grew to 133.7 million valuing Rs596.9 billion, which is 21 percent higher in volume and 14.8 percent higher in value in comparison to the previous quarter. The numbers of BB accounts have also increased to 19.9 million in the quarter Oct-Dec16.
Similarly, number of agents of the BB industry grew by 2.2 percent during the quarter, reaching to 359,806 by the end of current quarter. The share of agents in the market continues to be dominated by Easypaisa (30 percent), Jazzcash (19 percent) and UBL Omni by (12 percent).
The penetration of BB players has been observed in all provinces and regions including remote areas. Now, BB service providers need to develop business strategies in line with demographic and geographic requirements of the country especially to reach out to financially un-served areas.
In this regard, players are required to diversify their agent network in areas where access to financial services is limited.
National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) has set out a target of 50 percent of the adult population & 25 percent of total adult women population to have transactional accounts by 2020. It is therefore, essential that BB players make concentrated efforts to activate their existing agents’ infrastructure, develop new client centric products & services, innovate, encourage BB transactions, opening of new accounts, enhance usage and mobilize deposits so that NFIS target could be met.
