One of the key policy recommendations of LIRNEasia‘s recent study on the extension of mobile-based e-marketplace provider, CellBazaar to include the payment aspect (among others) of a transaction is the promotion of a secure mobile payments system in Bangladesh; the recommendation being that the government provide a clear policy framework / set of guidelines in order for private players (mobile operators/banks/other) to come in and essentially play.
On the one hand, this interview with the head of financial services for Grameenphone on the experience with BillPay, a utility payment service offered by Grameenphone, as well as LIRNEasia‘s Teleuse@BOP findings from the Philippines seem to suggest that even once the system is in place, there is still a lot of work to be done in earning people’s trust to use the service and change their behavior. Through BillPay has been around since 2006, it has only pushed the over-the-counter service, rather than the e-wallet version of the service (currently used by a small number), due to this very issue. Once the service reaches a critical mass of users, they plan to push out the e-wallet service more aggressively.
On the other hand, could already-popular services like CellBazaar (used by 3.5+ million GP subscribers) help drive up volumes for electronic/mobile payments and help them to reach critical mass?
See full interview here.
Download LIRNEasia study on expansion of CellBazaar to include payments and delivery here.
Download LIRNEasia Teleuse@BOP findings from the Philippines here.
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