Social norms influence nearly every aspect of daily life, including how we interact with financial services. Restrictive social norms are part of the reason why 42 percent of women and girls worldwide, approximately 1.1 billion, do not participate in the formal financial system.
Rotatory Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) are a popular mode of saving in Pakistan. In local parlance, they are called “committees” and are particularly popular among women.
Karandaaz Pakistan published a blog post on the use of prepaid cards in Pakistan. Among the needs discussed was a clear framework for the KYC requirements governing Pakistan’s prepaid market. That regulation arrived earlier this week.
Human-centered design (HCD) is a methodology that has existed for a while but began to resemble its current form in the early 1990s. More recently, the development sector has begun to adopt it in various sectors including the field of financial inclusion.
Borrow a relative’s credit card. Have a friend pay. For those excluded from the formal financial system, paying online is more often a matter of finding the right proxy than finding the right tool. Innovations such as mobile wallets continue to expand access to electronic payments.
No-frills - or basic bank accounts - are another tool in the arsenal of central banks and financial service providers that are interested in promoting universal financial inclusion. They traditionally have two defining characteristics.
There has been a steady rise in the promotion of mobile wallets as a viable alternative to conventional banking services.This innovative channel, MNOs seek to streamline the banking process and increase financial outreach to the wider population.
Two-way digital conversations can be used to migrate mobile money customers from OTC to mobile wallets and keep them active once migrated. In two-way conversations, customers can both initiate the conversation or be led in conversation. Juntos Global builds these two-way conversations with customers on behalf of financial service providers.
The process of graduating from an unaware potential customer to a fully aware and regular user of mobile wallets is not necessarily a simple and linear one. It is important that targeted, customer segment specific, communication takes place at every stage of awareness to help individuals.
In order to achieve the 50% financial inclusion goal that has been set by the State Bank of Pakistan, Karandaaz Pakistan believes that leveraging the ubiquity of mobile phones to increase mobile wallet uptake is critical. There are 124 million registered mobile SIMS in Pakistan.
