Pakistan’s Allied Bank has awarded a contract to provide mobile financial services to its users to American company Sybase.

The contract is aimed at providing financial services to 130 million mobile users in Pakistan, where a large rural population means that direct bank access is restricted. Sybase will provide Sybase 365 m-commerce solutions to other financial institutions in the country including Habib Bank.

Zia Ijaz, group chief commercial and retail banking group at Allied Bank, commented that: “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 under-banked population of Pakistan.”