The 2nd Indian Ocean/ South Asia Mobile Payments & Banking Summit 2013 will convene at Dhaka, Bangladesh from January 30 – 31, 2013. This is an important summit for all who wants to capitalise on the wave of mobile payments and banking opportunities in the developing economies of Indian Ocean/ South Asia region, says a press release.

In Bangladesh, only 13 per cent of the population has bank accounts but the country has country-wide mobile coverage with 56 per cent of the people with mobile phones.

The relatively low banking penetration rate can be attributed to the generally low income, underdeveloped banking infrastructure, high cost of traditional banking products, distance to bank and paper work required to set up bank accounts.

The adoption of mobile banking and payments is key to financial inclusion.  According to a research by Juniper Research, global m-banking transactions will reach $ 670 billion by 2015.

The US-based Yankee Group projects $ 545 billion in payments by the same year.
Mobile solutions have taken off and we will see its continual growth as mobile phone penetration continue to increase.
Focusing on India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan, this summit will bring together key stakeholders to provide an outlook and forecast on the South Asia mobile financial services and market opportunities.

The Summit will address the policies and regulations involved in the deployment of mobile solutions, microfinance credit models, bank-led models, value added service (VAS) promotion and adoption, mobile money transfer, social media payments, mobile phones’ supply chain management, leveraging on mobile platform to deliver government services, customers’ behavior on mobile payments, role of QR Codes in mobile money, mobile money agents, retails merchants and mobile money, security issues in mobile payments and m-commerce.

Speakers at the summit include Bangladesh Tele-communication Regulatory Commission, Bangladesh Bank, Central Bank of Sri Lanka, Pakistan Tele-communication Authority, Da Afghanistan Bank, Telenor Pakistan, Etisalat Lanka, Association of Mobile Telecom Operators’
of Bangladesh, Orascom Telecom Bangladesh, Indian Banks’ Association, Dutch Bangla Bank and more.

Omar Moeen Malik the Director (Strategy), easypaisa from Telenor Pakistan said, “With Mobile Financial Services really taking up in emerging markets and especially our region, I am really excited and look forward to attending the 2nd Indian Ocean / South Asia Mobile Payments & Banking Summit.

I would be happy to share some of the success stories from easypaisa in Pakistan, and I look forward to
meeting with conference members from other countries and learn more about their deployments and services launched”.

Zakiul Islam, Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs from Orascom Telecom Bangladesh said, “Dream and desire creates Innovation, and innovation turns for betterment of scalable mass when awareness and clarity is created among different entities in the ecosystem. Such initiative, workshop, seminars and interaction will help to create customer awareness and clarity among regulators to encourage innovation for Scalable Mobile Financial Services”.

mChek Bangladesh which provides a patent-pending, general purpose, mobile based secure authentication, authorisation, notification and payments solution is the summit’s Platinum Sponsor.

Commenting on the Summit, Ms Maggie Tan, CEO of Magenta Global said” This is a significant event to increase mobile payments developments in emerging countries.

The Summit gathers stakeholders from the wireless service providers, handsets manufacturers, banks and financial institutions to deliver innovative solutions to consumers and structuring partnerships to offer financial inclusion and generate growth in this emerging sector”. The summit will be held at The Westin Dhaka.

News: The Daily Independent/Bangladesh/14th-Dec-12