## _Box 1. Mobile Phone Banking Products new to MENA_

_Mobicash_ is now offered in Morocco by Maroc Telecom with Attijariwafa Bank and Banque Central Populaire. In late 2009, Maroc Telecom (MT), Morocco‟s largest mobile operator with 16 million subscribers and 61 per cent market share , along with Attijariwafa Bank and Banque Central Populaire, started implementation of Mobicash, Morocco‟s first mobile payments platform. Over time, this service could introduce access to deposits, withdrawals, bill payments, money transfer and mobile banking, as well as international remittances.

_MTN Mobile Money_ in Yemen is offered by MTN with the Cooperative Agricultural Credit (CAC) Bank. CAC is one of the largest state-owned banks in Yemen, and already has a large portion of the bill payments business. It also has its own POS acquiring network, the largest in the country. The Mobile Money product is a mobile wallet, with customer funds kept in a pooled account at CAC. The service will be accessed at CAC‟s 85 branches, 92 ATMs and 1,000 POS systems.

_M-dinar_ was launched in February 2010 by Banque International Arabe de Tunisie (BIAT), along with MNO Tunisiana and microfinance institution ENDA, and is a mobile wallet application. Users need to open a BIAT account, and the service will allow for person to person transfers, top-up, loan payment services for MFI clients, and the ability to view account balances, transactions history and request cash from other users. ENDA will also trial mandatory loan repayments via M-dinar to its 150,000 clients.

In Iraq, AsiaCell announced in February 2010 that it would form a strategic partnership with a consortium of private banks, AMWAL, to provide money transfer and other services through mobile phones in Iraq.

### Sources: Akhtar & Pearce, 2010; Michaels, 2010; CGAP, 2010.

# _Agents_

**Retailers, mobile phone airtime providers, and other non-financial outlets, offer huge potential for expansion of access to finance, if they can be used as ‘agents’ for financial service delivery.** Using banking agents and electronic payments to pay utility bills takes less time than traveling to and queuing in a range of utility offices, thereby bringing very tangible benefits. Similarly, collecting a pension, remittance receipt, and welfare or salary payment is a strong driver for opening accounts. Agents – such as retail stores or airtime sellers – are also key to the viability of mobile banking, as they are able to handle cash transactions. In Brazil, bill payments and the payments of government benefits to individuals comprised 78 percent of the 1.53 billion transactions conducted at the country‟s more than 95,000 agents in 2006. (CGAP, 2008). Only 10 percent of MENA countries reported allowing banks to use agents in 2008 however, which was well below other regions, for example 60 percent in ECA, 50 percent in high income countries, 41 percent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 29 percent in subSaharan Africa. In 2009 this improved though, with 3 countries reporting reforms to enable the use of agents. (CGAP and World Bank Financial Access 2009, 2010) The use of agents as a delivery mechanism is not yet widespread in the region however.

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