KARACHI: Dubai Islamic Bank Pakistan (DIBP) is set to launch branchless banking in the country by June 2018, after an agreement was inked with a Chinese technology company Zing Digital Commerce on Thursday.
DIBP’s Chief Executive Officer Junaid Ahmed after signing of the agreement said the bank was hopeful of starting its branchless banking services by June this year, reported Express Tribune.
Ahmed said branchless banking platform would allow accountholders to conduct financial transactions through their smartphones, including simple feature phone and permit people to pay for their groceries.
He added by this initiative of DIBP, transactions would become “paperless.” Mobile wallet service would assist DIBP in hastening its growth and attain State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) target of increasing market share of Islamic banks to 20 percent by 2020 from the present 14 percent.
Also, DIBP CEO stated this would backup economic growth, rake in major amount of money into the banking system. He added DIBP would be target the unbanked population by offering a wide array of products and fulfill SBP’s strategy for financial inclusion.
Currently around nine conventional banks and financial institutions are said to be offering branchless banking services in Pakistan in partnership with mobile phone services entities and tech companies.
As per SBP statistics, number of branchless bank accounts as of June 2017 stood at 27.32 million which included 13.15 million active accounts. During April-June 2017, these account holders conducted 167.17 million transactions amounting to Rs746.56 billion.
