Rajesh Rajeha

Degree

Master of Business Administration Executive

Faculty / School

Faculty of Business Administration (FBA)

Year of Award

2012

Project Type

MBA Executive Research Project

Access Type

Restricted Access

Executive Summary

It is a matter of fact that around the globe, the in-equal outreach of financial services has remained an unattended issue since the historical evolution of banking and financial services industry. However, access to financial services has been the growing concern across the world since a decade or so. The reason for this global concern about widespread financial exclusion is because of the fact that access to formal financial services to everyone can economically and socially empower poor and low income people and micro and small enterprises. It can help them to better integrate into the economy of their countries. According to a CGAP (Consultative Group to Assist the Poor) study, between two and three billion people around the world are still excluded from access to formal financial services.

With the advancement in information technology, the world has become a global village where information and other services has become one of the fundamental rights of the Information and communication technologies (ICT) has provided the much access to common men needed opportunities to fill the gap in financial services outreach, which could not be met through conventional modes of doing banking due to high cost and low profitability in remote areas. It is estimated that 90 percent of the world’s population has mobile phone coverage with most of this growth occurring in the developing world.

The world economies are realizing these facts and in a growing number of countries, banks and other financial service providers have started offering banking and payment services through postal and retail outlets, including grocery stores, pharmacies, seed and fertilizer retailers, and gas stations, among others. Coupled with innovation and spread of ICT, financial services providers are exploring the limitless opportunities for expanding the outreach of their business, hence increasing the access to finance in a way which was not imaginable a decade ago.

All over the world, over 1 billion customers have access to a mobile phone but no access to formal financial services. There are over 100 live mobile money deployments around the world, 35 of which are only in South Asia. Over 80% of these deployments are in developing markets.

Policies of financial services industry, formulated by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in our country have been driven by the objective of increasing financial inclusion & access to finance for the unbanked. The strategy for expanding the outreach of the financial services relied

primarily on expanding branches, sales & service centers, booths, ATMs (Automatic Teller Machines) and setting targets for credit to broad categories of different sectors of the economy.

We, in recent times, have seen that there has been a rapid increase in the use of new teclinologies to increase access to financial services in many countries. Pakistan is not an exception to it. In Pakistan too, mobile telephony has spread at an unbelievable pace opening the horizons for technology-based financial services. Technology can be harnessed to help expand geographical outreach and overcome low literacy levels. To capitalize on the innovation in ICT and to use technology-based solutions for increasing the access to finance in an efficient and cost effective manner, the SBP first issued Branchless Banking Regulations in March 2008 as part of broader strategy for financial inclusion in Pakistan.

Pages

V, 40

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