Universal Service Fund of Pakistan has taken an excellent initiative to ensure use of renewable energy in Pakistan.
In an interesting example of using public policy to drive long term benefits for society, USF has made the use of renewable energy compulsory for all Base Stations funded by USF.
There are three key strategies where a telecommunications company can engage in providing financial services. First is to provide services to those who do not have access, which is what Telenor is doing in Pakistan with EasyPaisa, and in Bangladesh. Second is to provide better financial services through mobile services, which is happening in developed countries and Dtac's ATM Sim project with Kasikorn Bank. Third is exploring the possibilities of technology for the future through Near Field Communciations (NFC), the Internet and other technologies.Here's why telco-finance makes sense:
Telenor Pakistan has 23 million mobile users. Compared to traditional banks, Telenor's 150,000 dealers and telephone network coverage have a much broader geographic and demographic footprint. Initially, Telenor is training 6,000 of its best dealers to offer financial services and the plan is to expand this training to around 20,000 to 30,000 dealers. In contrast, Pakistan has just 9,000 bank branches and 3,000 ATMs nationwide.Read the full article here for further details.
...ideas and research regarding latest developments in various paradigms of cellular mobile services. The event also focuses on the opportunities for delivery of more-than-voice services (such as m-payments, m-government, m-commerce) through mobile platforms, explore the possibility of using mobile as the “triple play” in the developing worldThe event was also covered by TelecomPK blog. They have shared the presentations uploaded on google docs. Telenor's case study was presented by their Chief Strategy Officer:
... shared a presentation on the topic of Telenor’s experience with Mobile 2.0 initiatives and in particular with EasyPaisa. The vision for Easy Paisa is to bank the unbanked. The progress that EasyPaisa has made in 6 months is quite impressive: over 600,000 utility bill payments have been made and money transfer of about Rs.1 billion has been completed.Kenya's case...
... has seen good progress with its m-Pesa program launched by the dominant mobile company Safaricom. Muriuki Mureithi, Summit Strategies, Kenya shared the reasons for success of mPayments in Kenya. He emphasized that the market was ready for a solution and the company exploited the situation well. See his presentation here.
"In 2001 I started selling few products through Beliscity.com as well as VOIP Devices & Cards like Yapjack, Komodo, IPStar & Net2phone, Then I add laptops & few unique products on it which is not easily available in the market. After 6months I change complete business module of Beliscity.com from internet hours selling to hardware selling. I have lots of my internet hours customer email data so I used it for new Beliscity.com & gradually its become a Biggest online retail shop in 2years period"
"We offer Cash on delivery & Credit card charge facility for our karachi & Lahore customer, Our riders deliver the products & collect cash from them or charge their card on the spot, For other cities we offered online banking deposit system. We are going to offer very soon COD & Credit card charge facility all over Pakistan inshallah. Paypal is not giving seller protection for Pakistan shipping so we are not using it for our Pakistan customers yes we are loosing our 20 to 25% business because of online money solution but at least we are in peace & not facing any fraud issues.... very soon Easypaisa option available on Beliscity.com"
