KARACHI, Dec 26: The State Bank said on Wednesday that mobile banking accounts have jumped to 1.8 million depicting a large growth of 25 per cent during July-September quarter of 2012.

According to Branchless Banking Newsletter released by the SBP, customers conducted almost 31.5m transactions worth Rs139 billion during the quarter.

The average size of each transaction was Rs4,420 while the average number of transaction per day increased to 0.349m.

The accounts’ activity level has also improved considerably during the quarter at the back of significant growth of 84 per cent in Level ‘0’ accounts and 7 per cent growth in Level ‘1’ accounts. These accounts are opened at the agents’ location largely by those who have traditionally been excluded from the banking services. The agents’ network has reached to 31,637 as of 30th September, 2012 from 29,525 as on June 30, 2012 registering an increase of per cent.  The transaction limits for Level ‘0’ and Level ‘1’ accounts are Rs15,000 Rs25,000 per day respectively.

Bills payments and mobile top-ups remained the dominating activity during July-September 2012 quarter with 45 per cent share in total numbers, followed by person to person (over the counter) fund transfers with a share of 38 per cent. Bulk payments mostly by agents topped, among others, by 41 per cent share in total value transacted during the quarter followed by person to person fund transfers with a share of 34 per cent.

“The BB service providers are trying to increase their linkages with microfinance institutions as loan repayments of Rs646m were collected through Branchless Banking agents during the quarter,” said the SBP Newsletter.

The growth expectation in coming quarters is fairly high as the existing two Branchless Banking players are increasing their scale of operations. Two banks namely Waseela Microfinance Bank and Askari Bank Limited have launched their branchless banking services under the brand names of ‘Mobicash’ and ‘Timepey’ respectively, said the SBP.