About a week ago Mobilink launched Genie - an exclusive mobile payments system using technology that was provided by Inov8 in Lahore over the past year or so.
Right now, it seems you can use genie to pay utility bills, Indigo bills and also buy credit for Jazz. From the how-to page it seems you can currently link Genie to either Citibank Credit Cards or to KASB bank, but more banks are planned soon.
From a business point-of-view, Mobilink has played a smart move here - as the telecom industry gradually kills off voice and starts to find more innovative and culturally relevant value-added-services for consumers, having control over a payment system backbone will be a significant advantage. Next they would have to invest in a RAD platform for Value-added-services and unleash it on our growing community of entrepreneurs and a spike in innovative third-party applications (similar to what has happened recently with Facebook) is likely to result.
The idea would be that if a would-be entrepreneur or college student can spend about a month to build a useful service using simplified tools and can immediately tap into a potential 20MM+ userbase, that is a lucrative platform to connect to.
In what future plethora of third-party telecom value-added-services that may result, inov8 will possibly get a share of each transaction. Smart moves.
