Since this was demand from the members to have a single touchpoint for them to integrate with DFS providers and commercial banks, therefore 15 MFPs have signed up for the platform. Out of these 15, 5 MFPs have been included in pilot phase. Migration process for these pilot MFPs has started and platform is being deployed in the datacenter. Contracts have been signed with two branchless banking players and development work for integration has been initiated.
What is Digital Services Platform?
The Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN) commenced a project with the aim of Digitizing the Microfinance Industry. There are two overarching objectives i) Provide Loan Management System in a hosted environment to Microfinance providers along with an integrated Digital Field Assistance Mobile application, and ii) Connect Microfinance providers to Digital Service Providers through a financial middleware so they can access the financial services distribution channels of DFS providers and Commercial Banks. The DSP will act as an aggregator for MFPs and DFS providers initially.
Other objectives of DSP are specified below:
- To create an enabling digital environment as per SBP’s and PMN’s vision to increase Financial Inclusion through Digitization
- To promote the use of Alternate Delivery Channels (ADCs) for various use cases of MFPs
- To reduce operations costs through automation of the processes while improving efficiency and decreasing Turn-Around-Time
- To enable MFPs to expand their outreach by diversifying their products menu and customer segments
- To support PMN’s ambition to increase outreach of financial services as envisaged by National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) and Financial Inclusion Programme (FIP)
- To provide MFPs a centralized platform to manage their operations via a suite of Digital Services
- To aggregate available agent networks of DFS and provide a single touch-point to MFPs for integration with them.
Source: https://pmn.org.pk/news/
