If you remember Telenor Pakistan introduced Easypaisa Mobile Accounts, almost an year ago. Those Easypaisa mobile accounts came with limitation of lower daily, monthly, and yearly transaction.

Since then, Telenor has worked passionately trying to get success in Mobile Accounts field. And now they have moved this product to one level up – From Level-1 to Level-2.

In today’s article we will see, what extra they have added in it after upgrading it to next level.

Following are the services which one can avail after opening his/her mobile account. All of these services are available on both types (Level-1 & Level-2) of mobile accounts.

• Utility Bill Payments
• Mobile Top up
• Cash Deposit
• Cash Withdrawal
• Money Transfer
• Bill Payments (Wi-tribe, Wateen)
• Transfer In/out
• Schedule Payments

Level 1 Accounts:

Level one accounts are those which were offered last year. More details on Level 1 Accounts are available here: http://propakistani.pk/2010/02/25/bank-accounts-go-mobile-with-telenor-easy-paisa-first-look/

Limitation – 1

There are certain limitations on these accounts, for instance capping on money sending/receiving & transaction limits are defined against Level-1 accounts. Below are the details.

• Daily Transaction Limit: Rs. 10,000
• Monthly Transaction Limit: Rs. 20,000
• Yearly Transaction Limit: Rs. 1,20,000

Limitation – 2

Interesting point – Transaction is a sum of both types – Debit & Credit. If I deposit Rs. 5000 in my account and afterwards I transfer Rs. 5000 to any other customer on same day then my daily transaction limit will be exhausted after the completion of transaction, so if a customer wants to send Rs. 6,000 in a single day after depositing Rs. 6000 in account then he/she will not be able to do this as the total transaction will hit the standard daily limit of Rs. 10,000 – Strange Limitation J

Limitation – 3

Mobile account opens against a “Computerized National Identity Card” number & one person can only have one account against his/her CNIC number. Means if one person has two numbers then account will be opened only on one number against his/her CNIC#. Customer can not enjoy account’s services on more than 1 numbers.

1 Person, 1 CNIC, 1 Mobile Account

Limitation – 4

Maximum amount which one can keep in account is Rs. 60,000 but if somebody needs cash and he goes to office then he will not be able to get his whole amount because of the daily threshold limit (Rs. 10,000). Telenor will only pay him Rs. 10,000 and ask him, please come tomorrow and after second withdrawal of Rs. 10,000 his monthly limit of Rs. 20,000 will get exhausted, so he will wait for next month to get rest of the money back J

Level -2 Mobile Accounts

To overcome all these issues & limitations, recently Telenor has launched Level -2 mobile accounts. The only difference from customer point of view is of “Transaction Limits”.

There are further four types under the head of Level-2 mobile accounts with some differences in transactional limits. Below are the details of transaction’s threshold with respective categories of Level-2 Mobile accounts.

Level-2-(Basic)	Daily Limit: 50,000 Monthly Limit: 100,000 Yearly Limit: 600,000 Max. Balance: 300,000
Level-2A	Daily Limit: 100,000 Monthly Limit: 200,000 Yearly Limit: 1,200,000 Max. Balance: 600,000
Level-2B	Daily Limit: 250,000 Monthly Limit: 500,000 Yearly Limit: 3,000,000 Max. Balance: 1,500,000
Level-2C	Daily Limit: 500,000 Monthly Limit: 1,000,000 Yearly Limit: 6,000,000 Max. Balance: 3,000,000

Features:

Account opening fee for all types of accounts is same. i.e. Rs. 60 and there is no migration/up gradation charges from Level-1 to Level -2 accounts. For opening of Level-1 account one only needs an original CNIC but to open Level-2A, 2B & 2C accounts customer needs to produce some other proofs, such as salary slip or business proof.

On Level – 2 accounts customer can get money directly into their accounts from other countries as well which is a very positive aspect of this product.

With Level 2 Mobile accounts, those with business needs, or with e-commerce solution can get benefited by large.

Transaction Charges:

All this luxury is of course not free. We are getting hold of charges associated with the service. Check back for updates.

Money Transfer (from an easypaisa Mobile Account to another easypaisa Mobile Account)

Money Transfer (from a CNIC to an easypaisa Mobile Account)

Money Transfer (from an easypaisa Mobile account to a CNIC)

Cash Deposit into Mobile Account

Cash Withdrawal from a Mobile Account

Transfer In from a Tameer Bank Account

Transfer Out to a Tameer Bank Account

Mini Statement

Utility Bills Payment

• Rs. 10 to be charged from the customer for any Utility Bill Paid of any denomination
• No FED is applicable here
• Transaction Limits apply on Bill Payments

You can schedule recurring (bill) payments via web – also can check Complete Account Statement and History of all Transactions

http://www.easypaisa.com.pk/account

How to Get EasyPaisa Mobile Accounts?

You will need to visit Telenor Service Center to get the account opened. You can dial 345 for any easypaisa information.

Alarming Situation

So far Telenor has captured more than 0.2 million accounts but the main area to ponder is the usability of these captured accounts. As per our sources only 4% to 6% of the accounts are in active condition & on rest of the accounts there is no activity going on which is leading this product to a close end.

As this is USSD based service not a GPRS based, so some handsets are getting issues regarding USSD menu display, especially Chinese handsets.

One more important thing to mention here is – most of the population is illiterate and cannot read English menu, so if you are advertising product to masses then you should take the literacy factor into under consideration.

Awareness about easy paisa is there in market, people knows about money transfer procedure through Telenor outlets/retailers but when it comes to Mobile Account opening – Awareness factor in whole population goes down rapidly, so Telenor needs to focus on this draw back and should launch a massive advertising campaign particularly about Mobile Accounts.