Telenor has been a pioneer in bringing innovative technology to the telecom sector in Pakistan. Telenor Pakistan has come up with a new service which has revolutionized the way financial services reach the masses. Telenor Pakistan has partnered with Tameer Micro Finance Bank to offer branchless banking for the first time ever in Pakistan.

Contrary to other mobile banking services, the user is not limited to the bank that is providing them this service. This service is available to anyone and everyone with a mobile handset. For now, the services being offered on this platform are Utility Bill Payments, Money Transfer and a Mobile Bank Account.

This service offers users the convenience to pay their bills, transfer money and bank through their mobile phones anytime, anywhere which is what the need of the day is these days. People are always on the move in the major metropolitan cities and those living in rural areas or small towns do not have to travel to the nearest bank which may be an hour or two away from where they are to pay their bills or receive money. During the presentation by Mr. Ali Abbas Sikander, Executive Director of Operations & Technology Tameer Micro Finance Bank, he explained the penetration of financial services available to the common man in Pakistan was very low and their aim as a Micro Finance bank was to provide those services to those who do not have it yet.

Mr. Omar Moin Malik, Business Manager Easypaisa said “Our mobile phones are no longer a convenience good, they are a necessity. If I forget my wallet at home, I can still spend the day without it, but if I forget my mobile phone, I will turn back and get it”. Stressing on the fact that mobile services are the way into the future with complete peace of mind and security.

Representatives from Telenor and Tameer Micro Finance bank stressed on the fact that these were the initial stages of the service and there are plans in the pipeline to further enhance the capabilities. Many members of the blogger community were present representing their respective blogs and there was an excellent exchange of ideas and questions regarding the pricing strategy and the future of the service.

Telenor has been quite active in engaging the Pakistani blogger community. They have been constantly using the digital medium to get opinions, suggestions etc. from the masses to further enhance their service offerings. I throughly enjoyed myself and it was a very informative and well organized event, got to meet some fellow bloggers and interact with the Telenor & Tameer Bank reps.

Here are some pictures from the event, sadly, I only had my camera phone on me so the quality is not that great.

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About the Service

The service offering for Easypaisa is extremely simple. It is all done through USSD which secure GSM standard for data transfer and unlike other mobile banking services, there are no GSM costs.

• easypaisa bill payment service allows a user to pay their telephone, gas and electricity bill through over 5500 easypaisa merchants in 500+ cities all over Pakistan.
• easypaisa money transfer service can be used to send money to friends and family from any easypaisa merchant in Pakistan. This service is not limited to mobile phone subscribers and anyone can use it without going through any registration process.
• easypaisa mobile account is a virtual bank account and works like any other bank account. This is a new service that is offered after the phenomenal success of the bill payment and money transfer service but it is currently only available to new and old Telenor subscribers.

For a complete list of service charges click here