Easypaisa empowers Nestlé dairy farmers with smart milk payments mechanism

Providing financial access to thousands of Pakistani dairy farmers as part of its mission of empowering societies, Easypaisa has collaborated with Nestlé Pakistan to make disbursement of milk collection payments swift, easy, and transparent. The partnership will also feature an awareness campaign for farmers where Easypaisa will train them to take full advantage of the Easypaisa mobile account services including attractive savings products and mass market health and life insurance.

Under this partnership, Easypaisa is providing Telenor SIMs and registering Easypaisa mobile accounts of around 15,000 farmers across Pakistan to transfer funds into their accounts on a weekly basis. For unparalleled convenience, Easypaisa ensures delivery of the payment to the farmer’s Easypaisa mobile account that they can withdraw from the nearest Easypaisa retailer. This will be a great relief for the dairy farmers since they will not have to carry cash to their homes from the milk centers and be in a vulnerable position of being robbed or travelling long distances to collect their hard earned money.

Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations lists Pakistan as the fourth-largest milk producing nation in the world with its dairy industry being a major contributor to the GDP. Every year, Nestlé pays over PKR 22 billion for milk sourcing in Pakistan; around 150,000 dairy farmers supply close to half a billion tons of milk a year through Nestlé’s extensive chain of over 2,500 milk collection centers. Prior to Easypaisa’s collaboration with Nestlé, most of the dairy farmers received their payments in cash from the supply agent routed via the traditional banking channel.

On the collaboration, Muhammad Yahya Khan, Chief Financial Service Officer, Telenor Pakistan said: “This partnership is a true demonstration of Easypaisa’s vision to empower people by making financial services available. We are proud and humbled to be facilitating the farmers with convenient financial services and encouraging them to increase their production. We hope through this collaboration, we help Pakistan become the largest milk producing nation in the world.”

“Nestlé is excited about entering into an agreement with Easypaisa for payment to our farmers,” said John Davis, the Head of Finance and Controls for Nestlé Pakistan. “This will allow the farmers to be paid through a mobile account and the farmers can withdraw cash from any of the Easypaisa outlets at their convenience. Apart from speedy, direct and transparent payment to the farmers, it opens the doors of mobile financial services for them.”

Being the country’s second largest mobile network, Telenor Pakistan already enjoys a strong relationship and trust with its 36 million customers. Easypaisa, being the country’s first and largest branchless banking solution, has reinforced this trust with 20 million customers conducing over 650,000 Easypaisa transactions every day. While more than a hundred million Pakistanis still go unbanked, and banks do little for the financial inclusion of the long tail customers, Easypaisa continues to fill the vacuum and provide masses with easy access to innovative mobile financial solutions.

Easypaisa’s first disbursement is scheduled in April 2016 and is expected to channelize more than PKR 1 billion to the farmers annually.