Archive for: South Asia

Here’s the Powerpoint of my presentation at a roundtable with regulators and people from the banking and telecom sectors in Karachi, Pakistan. It was a half-day event, attended by the Governor of the State Bank. CGAP’s Steve Rasmussen moderated. Stefan Staschen and I made two presentations to jumpstart discussions around the morning’s topics of (a) international experience with branchless banking, and (b) observations from CGAP’s Pakistan diagnostic.

BBC reports on how villagers in India can request web content — from cricket scores to photos of Britney Spears — as part of

The business was dreamed up by MITians a few years ago. The underlying technology is called DakNet — a wifi “village area network” created when vans and motorbikes fitted with short-range wifi devices are driven through villages giving people access to the internet for a short period of time. Kiosks, schools, and other common locations are equipped with PCs and wifi devices.

DakNet may have borrowed its name from Dakiya which is what bicylce riding postmen were called in India and for many still symbolize a remote village’s only connection to the world.

Not sure if the business is sustainable but villagers subscribe (Rs. 50 for a lifetime membership) for a range of services from email to SMS. You can also shop online. Delivering web content on-demand might be a new service.Villagers submit a request for specific content which is available hours later as the van or bike drives through the village broadcasting it over a wifi network.

Described in an earlier post yet another way to overcome connectivity short-comings in rural communities. Can’t have mobile banking (what’s that?) without the “pipes” to carry the data.

Mobile banking can be another service down-the-road for the DakNet guys, using even just plain vanilla SMS, one of many “bearer” technologies that providers need to consider. These technologies can’t be ignored when you have shared phones, as in the case of DakNet, and don’t want sensitive banking info. left on the phone or stolen via an unsecured wifi network. Read the rest of this page »

Focus Note No. 38, October 2006
Use of Agents in Branchless Banking for the Poor: Rewards, Risks, and Regulation (pdf)
This Focus Note examines the experience of five pioneering countries–Brazil, India, South Africa, the Philippines, and Kenya–where agent-assisted branchless banking that targets poor customers is already a reality. It introduces the main issues involved in regulating branchless banking, particularly regarding the use of retail agents.