ISLAMABAD: A collaboration amongst four Pakistani and multi-national organisations aims to enhance the availability of financial services for women from low-income households across the country. The partnership, announced on Friday (today), brings together the technical expertise of Pakistan’s premiere mobile financial services provider JazzCash and consumer products giant Unilever Pakistan Limited. The project will be executed with the support of the Pakistani non-profit development finance company, Karandaaz Pakistan, and the global nonprofit, Women’s World Banking. The partnership aims to research, design and develop an agent banking model that will serve women from low-income households who often face barriers in accessing formal financial services. The project builds on Unilever’s vast network of female retail agents – the Guddi Baaji initiative – who sell Unilever products in rural and low-income communities across Pakistan. Women’s World Banking will draw on nearly 40-years of research on women’s lives to develop and test solutions to enable these retail agents serve as mobile banking agents. These female entrepreneurs will be an extension of Jazz’s retail network, making the JazzCash mobile account available to women in rural neighborhoods using mobile and digital technology. This type of agent banking allows women to bank near their homes, cutting the cost of transport and time away from home and work. “JazzCash endeavors to provide basic financial services to the unbanked segment in Pakistan. We want more women to use financial services and by adding women to the agent network, we hope we can cater to their financial needs at our outlets by providing them with a comfortable environment to conduct their business,” said Aamir Ibrahim, the chief executive officer at Jazz. Shazia Syed, the chairperson and the chief executive officer at Unilever Pakistan, added, “The Guddi Baaji initiative empowers rural women by enhancing livelihoods and increasing influence within their communities. We are breaking gender stereotypes and creating role models. I am confident that our partnership with Jazz will increase opportunities for women in rural Pakistan through the power of mobile.” Women’s World Banking will work closely with Karandaaz Pakistan, which promotes financial inclusion for individuals by employing technology-enabled digital solutions. The two organisations will leverage global best practices from their experiences in developing successful agent banking models to serve women to help guide this project. Anna Gincherman, the chief product development officer at Women’s World Banking, highlighted the value of agent banking to women’s financial inclusion saying, “women already know and trust these shops and can now make deposits and withdrawals there rather than storing cash at home where it can slip through their fingers. The agents hold tremendous promise for bringing women into the formal financial system where they can open a bank account in their own name, plan for their future, build a safety net for times of crisis, and even grow their business.” Ali Sarfraz, the CEO of Karandaaz Pakistan, emphasised the role of digitisation in bringing financial inclusion to women, “Fostering financial inclusion for women is a core theme for Karandaaz Pakistan. If we have to make any tangible progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, Pakistan needs to act immediately to ensure women’s participation in the process of development. One way to do that is to improve women’s access to financial services and digital financial services can play a decisive role in bringing the financial services to women.” Published in Daily Times, December 16th 2017.