Afghanistan: A Role Model For India?

摘要

You might not believe this, but when it comes to M-banking, Afghanistan is really a great example that every Asian country must look at. Afghanistan, a country much smaller than India, and also with a not-so-great economic background has been one of the early adopters of the M-Commerce trend and M-banking solutions. Initially, the banking infrastructure of Afghanistan was really poor, people had to stand in queues to get their salary and undergo several tedious processes. Considering the increasing mobile penetration rates (which have risen from approximately 0.25% in June 2003 to 17.34% in August 2008), Roshan telecommunication, a leading telecom service provider in Afghanistan, saw a huge potential of growth in this market, and they thought of cashing-in on the trend of M-banking. In partnership with Vodafone, Roshan launched M-Paisa, a mobile payment solutionn which enables customers to transfer funds across vast distances, pay salaries to employees, purchase airtime and repay microfinance loans. M-Paisa is still in its trial phase and has about 2,500 customers, and the number is still increasing.