Telenor plans to achieve 10 percent of revenue in Asia from mobile financial services

 

By Telecom Lead Team: Mobile services provider Telenor is
planning to achieve 10 percent of its revenue in Asia from mobile financial
services in the near term.

 

I’m convinced we’ll get there,” said Telenor EVP Kristin
Skogen Lund during her keynote speech at Mobile World Congress.

 
 
In Pakistan, the operator has found a formula that is not only helping the unbanked
but is driving revenue and reducing churn at Telenor.

 

Skogen Lund said Easypaisa, the mobile payments service
launched in Pakistan together with Tameer Micro Finance Bank in 2009, is the
operator’s flagship mobile financial service and is seeing double-digit growth
month on month. Last year, more than 30 million Easypaisa transactions took
place, involving a transaction volume of $700 million, according to a report in 
mobilebusinessbriefing.com.  
 

Though Telenor has been able to buy Tameer, the
regulatory aspect will vary considerably country by country.

 

In Pakistan we have a majority stake in Tameer bank, but
we know we will have to sort this out in different ways. In some countries we are
not allowed to own a bank,” Skogen Lund added.
 

Operators have a phenomenal opportunity to provide
banking services to the unbanked: in Pakistan, around 85 percent of the adult
population do not have access to basic financial services such as micro loans.

 

Now, Telenor has around 17,000-18,000 Easypaisa outlets
in the country, compared to just 9,000 banking outlets.

 

Skogen Lund added that the simple structure of the
service also means the operator can operate its service at about 5 percent of
what a bank can do.

 
 
Additional advantages are that transactions take place instantly, and the
Easypaisa resellers are open at all hours of the day, unlike banks. Recognizing
the social-economic benefits of such a service, the Melinda and Bill Gates
Foundation also provided a grant of $6.5 million last year to extend it to
rural communities.  
 
 
The Norwegian operator is also working on other types of mobile financial
services, including the Tap2pay NFC trial in Norway and the mobile wallet joint
ventures in Sweden and Denmark.

 

editor@telecomlead.com

 

Please
see the complete coverage of Mobile World Congress 
here

Latest

More like this
Related

DU deploys Cloud RAN solution with Nokia and Red Hat OpenShift

DU, a telecom and digital services provider, has deployed...

Vodafone strategy to sell 3% stake in Indus Towers

Vodafone Group has decided to sell its 3 percent...

Is GenAI the right tool for telecom transformation?

Telecoms operators must  focus on a broad spectrum of...

Zain Group acquires full ownership of IHS Kuwait

Zain Group has announced a definitive agreement to acquire...