Branchless banking (BB) in the country continues to grow substantially with the number of BB accounts climbing to 2.1 million during October–December in financial year 2013 (FY13). Almost 35 million transactions worth Rs 151 billion have been processed during the quarter, said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday.
SBP said the sector had seen an “impressive” quarterly growth of 20 percent over the corresponding period of last year. The central bank, in its latest Branchless Banking Newsletter, attributed this upward trend mainly to a 49 percent growth in level 0 accounts.
The Level 3 accounts, it said, also registered a significant growth of 37 percent during the quarter mainly due to entry of two new players, ‘Mobicash’ and ‘Timepey’ while a marginal growth of 2 percent was observed in both level 1 and 2 accounts.
The average size of transaction was Rs 4,278, while the average number of transaction per day increased to 392,433 from 354,367 during the previous quarter, it added.
The fast growing network of BB agents reached 41,567 as of 31st December, 2012 from 30,540 as of 30th June, 2012, registering an increase of 36 percent.
“This growth is attributable mainly to the entry of new players,” the SBP said.
However, it said, this number did not take into account “shared” agents (i.e., an agent serving multiple providers).
The branchless banking deposits have grown by 35 percent to Rs 1 billion while person-to-person (P2P) fund transfers constituted a significant share of 33 percent in the value of total transactions.
According to SBP, bill payments and top-ups (45 percent) ranked first, followed by P2P fund transfers (34 percent).
Government-to-people (G2P) welfare payments through BB channels increased from Rs 4.1 billion to Rs 5 billion, registering a growth of 27 percent during the quarter.
Moreover, Rs 2.7 million have also been disbursed to Employees’ Old-Age Benefit Institution’s pensioners through agents.
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