16pc Pakistanis used mobile money to get a loan: GSMA survey

KARACHI: Sixteen percent of adult Pakistanis used mobile money-enabled credit during the past 12 months, according to the GSMA Consumer Survey.

GSMA published its 10th annual ‘State of the Industry Report on Mobile Money’, which revealed that mobile money adoption and use saw continued growth in 2021, processing a record $1 trillion annually.

“Uptake and demand for mobile money-enabled credit appears to be healthy. Results show that those using mobile money to access loans range from two percent of respondents in some countries to 36 percent in others,” read the report.

“There is generally higher uptake of loans in markets with higher prevalence of mobile money, particularly Kenya (36 percent). India (18 percent) and Pakistan (16 percent) are the exception – although both countries have low to medium mobile money prevalence, uptake of loans is still relatively high.”

Meanwhile, compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic, only Pakistan showed a trend towards increased use of mobile money enabled insurance.

A majority of respondents in Bangladesh, Egypt and India report using mobile money-enabled insurance differently, either more or less frequently. A slight majority of respondents in Kenya and Senegal say they use it less frequently. In Indonesia and Nigeria, insurance use has remained stable for a majority of respondents.

Meanwhile, close to 40 percent of adults in low-income countries (LICs) do not have an ID, which limits their ability to use digital services.

To address this challenge, the GSMA Inclusive Tech Lab developed Biometrics for All (B4LL), a multimodal (voice, facial and fingerprint recognition), multi-use case biometric solution that allows digital service providers in emerging markets to test different solutions for their customer base in a safe environment.

B4LL was initially trialled in Pakistan with leading mobile money provider Easypaisa to simulate a voice-enabled IVR call centre experience (in Urdu) for their customers. The aim was to help Easypaisa assess whether the technology would be useful for its customers and, if so, to adopt it more widely in its operations.

Feedback on the pilot has been favourable and Easypaisa is considering next steps on the use of voice-enabled authentication in its services across Pakistan.

“B4LL has been a highly useful asset for us to assess the utility of voice enabled biometric verification techniques for our customers and we are delighted to be working with the GSMA Inclusive Tech Lab on this partnership,” said Omar Moeen Malik, Head of Easypaisa – Business, Telenor Microfinance Bank.

Following the pilot in Pakistan, B4LL was launched as a mobile app with voice, fingerprint and facial recognition capabilities, and its code was released as open source. Despite the range of biometric authentication options available, B4LL solutions are targeted at LMICs and therefore built to be used on feature phones and low-tech smartphones.

B4LL is not a commercial service. It is simply intended to bridge the gap between digital service providers and biometric vendors, and accelerate the adoption of biometric authentication methods in emerging markets.

Compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, respondents in markets where mobile money is more prevalent (Bangladesh, Kenya and Senegal) show a trend towards less-frequent loan use. The same trend has been observed among respondents in Egypt, a market with very low mobile money prevalence.

However, in Pakistan, India and Nigeria, there is a more even spread of respondents using loans either more, less or the same.

Compared to before the Covid-19 pandemic, a majority of respondents in Pakistan, Indonesia, Senegal and particularly Nigeria, have been using mobile money-enabled savings more frequently.

However, the other countries in this study (Bangladesh, Egypt, India and Kenya) are showing an opposite trend, with a majority of respondents using savings less frequently than before the pandemic.

The gender gap in mobile money awareness is lower than that for mobile ownership in Pakistan as 77 percent of men and 70 percent of women have heard of at least one mobile money brand, whereas 76 percent of men but only 51 percent of women own a mobile phone.

“While this smaller gender gap in mobile money awareness is encouraging, it is important to note that the ability to recognise a mobile money brand does not necessarily mean a person understands what mobile money is for, how to use it or why it could be relevant to their life,” the report said.