New GSMA study unveiled

KARACHI: A new research report produced by the GSMA, ‘Building digital societies in Asia: Making commerce smarter’, indicates that for Pakistan to harness the full potential of digital commerce, strong collaboration is required among mobile operators, financial and payments companies and governmental agencies, a statement said on Tuesday.
Each of these stakeholders have a crucial role to play in enabling digital commerce, digital access and digital payments.
“Mobile operators have been investing heavily to ensure access to the internet in Pakistan and will continue to do so. By 2020, 3G coverage is expected to reach 90 per cent of the country’s population, and mobile broadband is expected to reach 40 per cent,” said Alasdair Grant, the GSMA’s Head of Asia. “With connectivity becoming less of an issue, the challenge now lies in increasing the number of digital commerce accounts and promoting digital payments in order to realize the full potential of digital commerce in Pakistan.” With half of the adult population in Pakistan (approximately 60 million people) having access to a mobile phone but not having a bank account, mobile money, or branchless banking as it is known in Pakistan, plays an important role. Mobile operators have already started to invest to increase branchless banking account adoption and usage, fostering the development of a digital ecosystem.