Telco Ooredoo has moved a step closer to launching its mobile payment service after it announced it has partnered with local lender CB Bank.
The Qatar-backed telco says it has completed testing and established an internal management system but is now waiting on licence approval from the Central Bank of Myanmar (CBM).
The sevice called M-Pitesan, a transliteration on the Burmese word for money, will allow users to send and receive money instantly through their smartphones.
“We have applied for the license… we are just waiting for approval, which will hopefully see us introducing mobile financial services to our customers some time this year,” Rene Meza, CEO of Ooredoo’s Myanmar operation, told Myanmar Business Today in an interview earlier this year.
When Ooredoo receives license approval it will become the second telco backed mobile money service operator, after Telenor’s Wave Money, to offer its services in the country.
While the arrival of the telcos in the nascent mobile money sector could be seen to herald in a new era of financial inclusion in the country, Meza says mobile money will compliment rather than challenge the more tradition role that banks play in offering financial services.
With its largely unbanked population of more than 50 million and limited banking infrastructure, mobile financial services will play an essential role in meeting the population’s needs, he added.
Source: Myanmar Business Today
