Last week , Telenor in conjunction with Tameer Microfinance bank , in which Telenor is a majority share holder , introduced Telenor Easy Paisa . a service to ease the hassle of utility bill payments.
When I first heard of Easy Paisa , my first thought was that finally a cellular company has realized their potential and is introducing Mobile Payments concept in Pakistan where I can manage my finance , make payment through my cell phone , but when I read the PR I was a disappointed .
Why disappointed ? Easy Paisa was not about managing my bank account through my phone , it was not I can make micro payments to my friends even my grocery store through my phone , it was simply a bill payment but where mobile phone use is optional .
Telenor with it’s vast outreach through it’s franchisee and retailers is providing Tameer Bank an outlet to collect on bill payment be it Gas , Electric or other utilities . that’s it , Telenor , as a friend puts it , has taken the line from outside the bank to outside the grocery store and their franchisee , where I can pay my bill through CASH and get my bill payment receipt and optionally get the confirmation by SMS on my cellphone no matter my service provider .
That’s Easy Paisa , Telenor first please realize that the people you have targeted are not standing in line to pay their bills anymore , it’s our peons who pay it and even if ‘we’ the middle to upper middle class goes to pay the bill , we don’t stand in line , we pay it through ATM , NADRA Kiosk and even through our bank where we sometimes stand in a short line inside the air conditioned premises . Market these services to my peon not to me , and I’m serious , market Telenor Easy Paisa in slums of Pakistan where the working class don’t get the time to go to bank , advertise in the Rs 2 newpaper which the ‘lower and lower middle class’ reads , advertise in regional languages not in English in a full page of Dawn. Market it to those for who don’t even dare to enter a bank as it’s too intimidating for them, this is your real market .
Why am I suggesting this to Telenor ?
I come to the second part of my topic ‘ Could be made better ‘ . When attending the launch of Telenor Easy Paisa , it was said that it’s just the begining , there is more to come , I suggest to Telenor to listen to the Keynote speech by Miss Carol Realini CEO OboPay now part of Nokia Money . Her concept of payments is simple , mobile money for micro payments .
Example , Take a day laborer who makes RS 500 per day , his daily expenditure is Rs 450 a day and he saves Rs 50 a day . Till now , he was saving it in a box in his house as firstly he is too intimidated to enter a bank branch , secondly the cost of opening an account will be more than he can afford with issuance of cheque books and all . With Telenor Easy Paisa , every evening , when he gets paid he deposits his saving of Rs 50 into his Telenor Easy Paisa account , managed by Tameer bank . at any Telenor Franchisee or authorized retailer . As soon as he deposits the money , he gets a confirmation SMS on his mobile ( Telenor could charge his Rs 50 for the first time to issue him a Telenor SIM with Rs 25 balance ) . At the end of the month , he needed some money to pay his family in another city , he sends an SMS to Telenor Easy Paisa and instantly gets his balance and with another SMS sends the money he desires to his parents residing in another city and instantly receives the confirmation. His parents , say in Lahore goes for grocery shopping and needed cash , so they go to a Telenor Franchisee / Authorized Retailer and take cash out against their own Telenor Easy Paisa account and Telenor charges 1 % of the transaction as fee or they can make payment to their grocery store by Telenor Easy Paisa .
The benefits of the above scenario are numerous
- For the laborer , he does not have to go to a bank where his Rs 50 account will not be entertained
- Security as instead of collecting his life savings in a box which can be easily lost or stolen , it’s safe and secure in Tameer Bank
- Ease of use , with one SMS he can check his balance and make payments
- Fast , with one SMS , he can transfer money to anyone with Telenor Easy Paisa account
That’s what the consumers now demand , ease of use , safety and swift transactions .
- For Telenor / Tameer bank , the benefits will be
- Hundreds of thousands of Micro Accounts , tapping the huge unbanked market of the country .
- Although the individual deposits value will be small , the volume of deposits will be huge enhancing the overall value
- With the wide acceptance of mobile payments , the money will stay with the bank only titles will change and it will further increase as more deposits will be made
- The 1 % cash withdrawal cost will cover the financial charges associated with transactions.
I once had a tweet discussion with Carol Realini of Obo pay and she herself agreed on the potential of Pakistan , it only depends who taps it first , will it be Telenor with their Easy Money already in place , Mobilink with their Genie , Warid which may enter the playing field with their UBL and Bank Alfalah connections or Nokia itself with their Nokia Money .
Who ever comes first , count me in as a potential customer as I want micro payments , yes the middle and upper classes will also benefit from it , I can deposit Rs 100,000 to my Telenor Easy Money account and pay the house staff through mobile , I can pay my bills through my phone without giving it to my peon , the possibilities are endless and waiting to get exploited
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