Source: Emerging Market Payments
Emerging Markets Payments (EMP), a leading regional electronic payments processing company, announces the signing of a partnership with Inov8, a market leader in mobile payments and branchless banking in Pakistan.
Under the agreement, Inov8 will promote EMP’s third party card processing services in Pakistan and provide logistical and other in-country support.
“Pakistan is a potentially enormous market” said Paul Edwards, Executive Chairman of EMP. “This is a country which is leapfrogging bricks-and-mortar banking and instead using cards and mobile phones to bring financial services to the population of 180 million people. Pakistan has a well-developed mobile phone industry; there are around 100 million people that have a phone but no access to financial services. This is a massive latent demand that we aim to address in conjunction with Inov8.”
“We are delighted to partner Inov8, which has excellent connections across the banking sector and which has developed a highly sophisticated mobile payments platform, which is as good as anything I have seen in the mobile payments world”, said Edwards.
Inov8’s products include MicroBank, a robust digital payments platform and middleware, SendPesa money transfer and Falcon, a mobile wallet and mobile banking service which, uniquely, also provides ticketing, location based services and full integration with social media, including Facebook and twitter.
“We are excited to partner with EMP” said Hasnain Skeikh, Chairman and CEO of Inov8. “We have chosen to focus on the mobile channel, and this focus has allowed us to build a market leading solution, but we recognise that combining our products with cards can deepen their value and broaden the target market. EMP’s expertise in the cards industry complements our capability perfectly.”
Murat Ozulku, EMP’s CEO of Financial Payments Solutions (FPS), pointed out that EMP already serves 130 banks across Africa and the Middle East and is now developing new markets beyond this region.
EMP is represented in Cape Town, Accra, Lagos, Nairobi, Amman, Cairo, Dubai, Kabul and now Lahore. The company offers an innovative and wide range of products for banks, merchants and governments including advisory services, mobile payments and bill payments among many others.