Sybase 365, a subsidiary of Sybase Inc., announced its Sybase 365 Mobile Commerce solution has been selected by Pakistan's Allied Bank Limited to offer mobile financial services to its customers.

With the Sybase 365 solution, Allied Bank will be able to offer mobile banking capabilities to the nearly 130 million mobile users in Pakistan, many of whom live in rural areas and lack access to banks, ATMs and even the Internet.

"Pakistan is the fifth largest mobile phone market in Asia, and one of the fastest developing markets for branchless banking in the world," said Matthew Talbot, SVP for m-commerce at Sybase 365. "The proliferation of mobile banking continues to help empower these vast communities, improving the daily lives of many and fuelling the local economy."

Talbot said mobile is undoubtedly emerging as the most important banking channel for customers and Sybase 365 is proud of the strong momentum and leadership it has created in emerging markets.

"With many successful mobile banking deployments in its portfolio, we are confident that Sybase 365 is the right partner to help us develop and implement a robust mobile banking strategy to tap into the unbanked and underbanked population of Pakistan," said Zia Ijaz, group chief of the commercial and retail banking group at Allied Bank.

Sybase 365 will also be launching mobile banking services for Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) in Pakistan, and ONE Bank Ltd. (OBL) in Bangladesh, the company said.

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