As Digital Bridge Limited, PTA and VRG square off,
Asaan Mobile Account scheme takes a hit
DBL approached the court afraid that if the court did not intervene, the PTA was likely to destroy the prospects of DBL of having a successful business By Taimoor Hassan
T
he Sindh High Court on Wednesday dismissed a case filed by Digital Bridge (Pvt) Limited (DBL) against Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) which had been awaiting decision by the court since February this year. The recent judgment clears the way for Virtual Remittance Gateway (VRG) to move ahead with the commercial launch of Asaan Mobile Account (AMA) scheme of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) under its National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) to bank the unbanked. The case appears to be one of those old school moves in the business world of using courts to slow things down for a competitor from launching a scheme which can potentially
FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY
benefit the economy at large. Digital Bridge Limited, allegedly backed by some serving and former executives of Pakistan’s telecom companies is another third-party service provider gunning to launch the AMA to bank the financially excluded. It’s competitor, Virtual Remittance Gateway, is ahead of DBL in terms of readiness for the launch of AMA and claims to have already crossed 1 million AMA accounts in it’s pilot phase. The final authorisation for the commercial launch has to come from the PTA in the form of a ‘commencement certificate’ granted to a company that has fulfilled all the prior conditions and VRG was on the verge of getting it that worried DBL. Before VRG could get their hands on the commencement certificate, in August last year, DBL approached the Sindh High Court and obtained a stay order against
PTA to stop it from granting the commencement certificate to VRG, citing that the PTA was giving preferential treatment to VRG for the launch of AMA under TPSP license and discriminating against DBL. There are insinuations of collusion and conspiracy, outright claims of harassment and high-handedness, playing victim by a party and between all that, the collateral damage is the scheme called Asaan Mobile Account scheme (AMA) which can be a phenomenal opportunity to give access to formal financial services to the underprivileged segments by allowing them to open transactional banking accounts over feature phones. The AMA dream of the SBP was mandated under infrastructure sharing where banks and telcos would share their infrastructure to achieve interoperability. Banking for the
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