Etisalat Afghanistan recognized with mobile money award at Connected World Forum in Dubai

The event, held in Dubai, brought together over 1,000 international leaders in the Banking and GSM Network industry.

The "Achievement in Social Inclusion" award is presented to organisations that have made the greatest difference to their community through social inclusion, and have been most successful in delivering tangible social and economic benefits.

Mr. Ahmed Alhosany, CEO Etisalat Afghanistan, said: "We are proud to have the responsibility to provide the latest services and solutions that will offer improvements in our customers' quality of life. We believe that telecommunication is transformative, and it is our mission to contribute to the social and economic development of Afghanistan."

Currently, mobile density in Afghanistan is at 50 percent and growing rapidly. As almost 95 percent of Afghans do not have access to banking infrastructure, using mHawal - Etisalat Afghanistan's complete innovative mobile money solution - Etisalat is able to address the challenges of the financial services industry. Services provided by mHawal include: central bank cooperation, banking ecosystem participation, utility merchant involvement, salary disbursement, complete mobile banking capabilities and future cross-border money transfers.

Etisalat Afghanistan has successfully rolled out both the national utility company and electricity bill payments - by mobile phone - with 50,000 customers already registered, and the goal to have 300,000 customers registered in Kabul by the first quarter in 2013.