Comment by Riaz Haq on February 24, 2022 at 10:41am

NayaPay secures $13 million, largest seed funding in South Asia for its messaging and payment app – TechCrunch

https://techcrunch.com/2022/02/23/nayapay-secures-13-million-larges...


Pakistan-based fintech platform, NayaPay, has raised $13 million in a seed round to rollout its multi-service messaging and payment app, and to build payment acceptance and financial management tools for businesses in the South Asian country.

NayaPay CEO and founder Danish Lakhani told TechCrunch that the super-app allows people residing in Pakistan to send and receive money, split bills and make payments conveniently from smartphones. They have also issued virtual and physical Visa cards linked to the NayaPay wallet further allowing its users to make POS payments, and businesses to accept payments.

Lakhani said that NayaPay is leading a digital payment revolution in Pakistan, a cash-heavy economy, where only 1% of $4 trillion payments are done electronically. This is in a country of 220 million people. But NayaPay’s goal is even bigger; to bank millions of adults that remain unbanked, with women affected the most — only one in three women holds a bank account. The youth and freelance communities in Pakistan are also majorly locked out by traditional banks. About 100 million people are unbanked in Pakistan, according to this World Bank report.


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Pakistan’s NayaPay Pvt. has raised $13 million in early stage funding as it seeks to capture millions of users in one of the world’s largest under banked nations.

The Karachi-based startup’s seed round was led by Zayn Capital, MSA Novo and Silicon Valley early-stage investor Graph Ventures, Chief Executive Officer Danish Lakhani said in an interview. NayaPay became the first startup to offer financial services after receiving a license from the State Bank of Pakistan in August. The fintech’s chat-led payments app started by targeting students and freelancers.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-24/startup-nayapay-...

Comment by Riaz Haq on March 23, 2022 at 4:41pm

#Careem Pay registered over 66 million transactions across six core markets in 2021. #Pakistan had the highest use of peer-to-peer #payments and #mobile recharge, with over 443,000 transactions. #P2P https://www.arabnews.com/node/2048396#.YjuuMBS689I.twitter

The ride-hailing company widened its offerings from food delivery to money transfer
Careem is, in its own words, ‘driven by the purpose of simplifying people’s lives and building an awesome organization’

Careem saw at least a two-fold increase in its services across 13 markets in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan in 2021.
It completed a total of 109 million rides, the firm said in its 2021 customer and business trends report.
Cars and bikes transactions grew by 2.6 times compared to December 2020, while delivery and bill payments services grew 2.4 times and 2 times respectively.
In 2021, one in seven customers in Saudi Arabia used multiple services on the app, and the most popular combination of services was ride hailing and food delivery.
The airports with the most Careem journeys in 2021 were Jeddah with 57,000 trips, Karachi with 211,000 trips, and Dubai with 207,000 trips.
In Q1 2021, Careem revealed a new, disruptive food delivery business model that replaced traditional high-percentage aggregator commissions with a 0 percent commission, giving restaurants of all sizes fair and transparent pricing to grow profitably. It reduced delivery bills by nearly 50 percent and increased the number of orders by up to 20 percent in some restaurants.
The number of the new restaurant outlets that joined Careem in 2021 increased by 58 percent over 2020.
Careem Pay registered over 66 million transactions across six core markets in 2021. Pakistan had the highest use of peer-to-peer payments and mobile recharge, with over 443,000 transactions. Careem Captains topped-up their phones 32.6 million times in 2021, amounting to a total of $1.5 billion.

Comment by Riaz Haq on April 18, 2022 at 4:17pm

Egypt-based fintech Paymob has partnered with Pakistan-based Bank Alfalah for digital payments acceptance across Pakistan.

https://thepaypers.com/online-payments/bank-alfalah-partners-with-p...

The fintech has signed an agreement with Bank Alfalah to activate and support merchant acquisition and integration services across the country. This collaboration will enable an instant onboarding feature in Pakistan using Paymob’s solutions such as payment gateway integration, POS terminals, and SoftPOS.

The instant onboarding feature is supported by the digital onboarding regulations recently published by the State Bank of Pakistan and comes as one of the steps the State Bank has led to enable MSME merchants in order to further digitise the ecosystem.

The partnership follows the launch of Paymob’s ‘Tap-on-Phone’ payment acceptance mechanism in Egypt. The Tap-on-Phone service will also be accessible for Pakistan-based merchants, enabling them to use mobile phones directly to service payments. The company aims to onboard over 100,000 merchants across Pakistan, until 2024, and improve ecommerce acceptance for online merchants.

The market opportunity in the country is increased given the range of retail outlets and SME businesses across the country’s cities. With over 4 million SMEs using just over 80,000 POS terminals and less than 3000 ecommerce payment gateways, the market is suited to meet Paymob’s criteria and strategy to expand globally, and bridge the digital financial gap, according to the press release.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2022 at 7:13pm

The Indian economy is being rewired. The opportunity is immense
And so are the stakes

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/05/13/the-indian-economy-is-...

As the country emerges from the pandemic, however, a new pattern of growth is visible. It is unlike anything you have seen before. An indigenous tech effort is key. As the cost of technology has dropped, India has rolled out a national “tech stack”: a set of state-sponsored digital services that link ordinary Indians with an electronic identity, payments and tax systems, and bank accounts. The rapid adoption of these platforms is forcing a vast, inefficient, informal cash economy into the 21st century. It has turbocharged the world’s third-largest startup scene after America’s and China’s.

Alongside that, global trends are creating bigger business clusters. The it-services industry has doubled in size in a decade, helped by the cloud and a worldwide shortage of software workers. Where else can Western firms find half a million new engineers a year? There is a renewable-energy investment spree: India ranks third for solar installations and is pioneering green hydrogen. As firms everywhere reconfigure supply chains to lessen their reliance on China, India’s attractions as a manufacturing location have risen, helped by a $26bn subsidy scheme. Western governments are keen to forge defence and technology links. India has also found a workaround to redistribute more to ordinary folk who vote but rarely see immediate gains from economic reforms: a direct, real-time, digital welfare system that in 36 months has paid $200bn to about 950m people.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2022 at 7:32pm

Pakistan to launch digital ID wallet this year
By Daniel Tost - March 8, 2022, 6:19 pm

https://www.globalgovernmentfintech.com/pakistan-to-launch-digital-...


Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) is planning to roll out a digital identity wallet later this year in a move that will end the need for physical ID.

NADRA is tasked with digitising all citizen data in the country, which – with more than 220 million citizens – is the fifth biggest in the world in terms of population.

As part of a digital push aimed at generating benefits including greater financial inclusion, the authority is working on a significant evolution of the existing ‘Pak-ID’ smartphone app – which was itself only introduced seven months ago, the authority’s chairman Tariq Malik told Pakistani media Dawn.

Launched last September, Pak-ID allows citizens to apply for a physical ID card remotely by using their Android or iOS device to scan documents and biometric data including their fingerprints and take a picture to verify their identity. When it was introduced, NADRA proclaimed that Pakistan had become ‘the first country in the world to introduce ID technology’. Two weeks later, the authority launched a similar biometric verification service for the banking and payments industry. With five banks initially participating, the service enables customers to open bank accounts and undertake biometric authenticated financial transactions using a mobile-phone camera.

Hailing Pak-ID’s debut, prime minister Imran Khan called the app “a revolutionary step in providing convenience, especially to overseas Pakistanis”. It seems these expats have at least partly driven the decision to launch the digital identity wallet by updating the Pak-ID app. “In a short span, 75,000 overseas Pakistanis have processed their national identity cards from the comfort of their homes by using the app,” Malik told Dawn. “With successful testing on 75,000 overseas Pakistanis, NADRA will go for a digital wallet.”

The wallet would be “a leap forward putting an end to the conventional physical ID” and is to be made available “later this year”, Malik said. “The digital dividends of such technology innovation will yield positive results in contactless banking, financial inclusion, ease of doing business and e-governance initiatives by offering remote identification and e-KYC [know-your-customer procedures].”

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2022 at 7:46pm

Pakistan to launch digital ID wallet this year
By Daniel Tost - March 8, 2022, 6:19 pm

https://www.globalgovernmentfintech.com/pakistan-to-launch-digital-...

Focus on unregistered citizens
As of January, 96 per cent of Pakistan’s adult (above 18) population, have a Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC), according to Islamabad-headquartered NADRA. Pakistan started rolling out its Smart National Identity Card (SNIC) in 2012 in a programme overseen by NADRA and aimed at replacing CNICs. Currently, both types of cards remain valid.

Recently, NADRA has focused on unregistered individuals (citizens without an identity card) by creating an ‘Inclusive Registration Department’. Its aim is to enhance registration, especially for women, minorities, transgender and unregistered persons. The agency targeted 80 districts with a gender gap of more than 10 per cent in registration figures. Eighteen female-only NADRA centres were opened to overcome socio-cultural barriers of women cautious about dealing with male staff. Additionally, 262 mobile registration vans and 80 ‘ManPack’ mobile units have been deployed countrywide for people living in remote areas or senior citizens who may struggle to travel. In total there are more than 700 registration centres operating countrywide and in all 154 districts of Pakistan. According to a NADRA press notice issued last month, the gender gap has been reduced by 40 per cent in targeted districts.

NADRA says it holds the largest biometric database of citizens in the world. The security of such a stock of citizen data is clearly important but the authority states that its SNIC is equipped with 36 security features, using a layering system to safeguard sensitive information.

Principles for interoperable ID
Pakistan’s move comes against the international backdrop of high-level principles to support the development of mutually recognised and interoperable digital ID systems and infrastructure having been drafted by a working group on digital identity comprising representatives from eight countries.

The 11 principles call for digital ID infrastructure to be open; transparent; reusable; user-centric; inclusive and accessible; multilingual; secure and private; technologically neutral and compatible with data portability; administratively simple; able to preserve information; and effective and efficient.

In its report, the Digital Identity Working Group (DIWG) said its goal is to enhance trade agreements and to ‘facilitate economic recovery from Covid-19, for example to support the opening of domestic and international borders’.

Established in 2020, DIWG comprises Australia, Canada, Finland, Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, the Netherlands and the UK. It is chaired by Australia’s Digital Transformation Agency.

Comment by Riaz Haq on May 16, 2022 at 1:59pm

SBP
@StateBank_Pak
Another milestone achieved by #SBP in the journey of digitization, as number of #Raast IDs registration crosses 10 million mark since its launch in Feb22. Aggregated value of Person to Person (P2P) Transactions using #Raast system by customers crosses Rs36bn.

https://twitter.com/StateBank_Pak/status/1526174517910986755?s=20&a...

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 10, 2022 at 7:43am

Non-bank finance firms disbursed over Rs6.14bn loans digitally

https://www.dawn.com/news/1673391/non-bank-finance-firms-disbursed-...


Licensed digital lending Non-Bank Finance Companies (NBFCs) have made rapid progress and started to show disruption in Pakistan’s lending landscape and are proving to be significant in furthering the journey of financial inclusion, data shared by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) showed on Friday.

The SECP has licensed six fintech-enabled NBFCs, which have collectively reached out to 365,239 borrowers with disbursement of over Rs6,139 million through 858,998 loans, which signifies that many borrowers have obtained more than one loan from these lenders.

The data released by the SECP shows that the average loans size of these digitally-enabled NBFCs ran­ges from Rs1,000 to Rs80,000 depen­ding upon the nature of business and target market of these entities.

“These are small loans available easily for the borrowers, but since these are digital-based, the borrowers cannot default and ignore the repayment,” said a senior official of the SECP adding that the data of defaulters is shared with the State Bank of Pakistan as a result the defaulter cannot avail any other financial service.


The official added under this lending mode, the small amount request by the borrower is credited into the digital wallet of the borrower within few hours as digital processing of the loan is fast and does not require any guarantee.

Newly licensed digital lending NBFCs include Finja Lending Ser­vices Limited, SeedCred Financial Services Limited, Qisstpay BNPL Limited, Tez Financial Services Limited, Cashew Financial Ser­vices Limited and CreditFix Fina­ncial Services Limited. These NBFCs are providing financial solutions to otherwise unserved and underserved through digital means and include Nano lending, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending and Buy-Now-Pay-Later models etc.

All of these licences have been issued during the last three years to NBFCs that are engaged in digital lending using innovative fintech solutions.

The first fintech-enabled NBFC licence was issued in 2019 and only 55,528 requests were honoured, disbursing Rs495 million, while by the end of 2021, the six licence holders disbursed a total of Rs6.13 billion to 365,239 borrowers.

“This is a solution to the traditional complaint that the banks were not interested in small loans, and the majority of borrowers were those who either did not possessed credit cards or wanted to spend the amount in any sector which does not deal in credit cards,” the official added.

The SECP has said that fresh applications have been received for NBFC licence from investors who intend to engage in fintech based lending.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 12, 2022 at 8:25pm

NADRA Launches Digital Payment System to Replace ATM

NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority) just recently announced the arrival of its new e-payment system which is proclaimed as the final blow to ATM usage around the country. Claimed to be the replacement for ATMs, the e-payment solution will allow users to make easy electronic payments.

Alongside NADRA, 1Link also played an important role in building the e-payment solution. Once widely in use, this will be Pakistan’s biggest and most fully accredited payment gateway system. NADRA adds this new venture into its already successful catalog of solutions named as ‘e-sahulat’.

https://www.techjuice.pk/nadra-launches-digital-payment-system-to-r...

With the launch, NADRA will start its mission of transforming over 17,000 e-Sahulat locations into full-featured ATMs. These locations will then also provide users with a number of different online payment options.

NADRA Chairman Tariq Malik and 1Link CEO Najeeb Agrawal signed the contract on Monday. Chairman Malik on the occasion said that NADRA for a long time has been trying to enhance its e-governance services by empowering organizations from both the public and private sectors.

““We are enhancing state capacity to deliver digital public goods and move towards electronic financial transactions for transparency and accountability. This would enable financial inclusion as well.” said Malik about the new e-payment solution.

Malik in his speech also claimed for NADRA’s e-sahulat is the most cutting-edge digital service for financial payments. Now with an e-payment solution coming into play, around 17,000 NADRA e-sahulat centers will be able to quadruple their capacity.

According to NADRA, we will soon see the e-payment platform in rural areas of Pakistan as well. Now, this is a great initiative since it will allow ease of business and increase rural contribution to the digital economy.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 23, 2022 at 11:26am

Mobile banking doubles, internet banking grows by 51.7% in FY2021-22
As internet banking, POS, and eCommerce transactions post strong growth, the digital payments ecosystem is picking up steam

https://profit.pakistantoday.com.pk/2022/12/23/mobile-banking-doubl...

https://www.sbp.org.pk/PS/PDF/FiscalYear-2021-22.pdf

The past fiscal year has seen a massive increase in the size of the digital payments ecosystem, the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) Annual Payment Systems Review for 2021-22 revealed. The report says that mobile phone banking increased by 100.4% to 387.5 million, while internet banking grew by 51.7% to 141.7 million during the year.

The impressive numbers come on the back of an important year for the ecosystem that saw a number of milestones. With the SBP backed Raast getting traction, and electronic money institutions (EMIs) gaining popularity among customers, the signs are pointing towards money quickly becoming digital. Cash transactions have also gained momentum with ATM networks proliferating and cash withdrawals from ATMs also posting double digit growth over last year.

The tools for growth

By value, mobile phone banking and internet banking grew strongly by 141.1% and 81.1%, thus, reaching to Rs11.9 trillion and Rs10.2 trillion respectively. Ecommerce transactions also witnessed similar trends as the volume grew by 107.4% to 45.5 million and the value by 74.9% to Rs106 billion.

During FY22, a total of 32,958 Point of Sales (POS) machines were deployed in the country which led to an expansion of its network by 45.8% to 104,865. The total number of transactions through POS, 137.5 million, were 54.5% higher than previous fiscal year with transaction value reaching Rs0.7 trillion growing by 56.1%.

E-commerce merchants registered with the banks increased to 4,887 in FY21-22, from 3,003 merchants during the previous year. In continuation of its efforts to promote and enhance the digital payment system in the country, SBP launched Raast Person-to-Person (P2P), which enabled payments among individuals, businesses and other entities to settle transactions in real-time. According to the report, as of June-22, there were 15 million registered P2P Raast users, carrying out 7.9 million transactions amounting to Rs 102.1 billion in value. Raast was launched in November last year.

The number of large-value transactions through the Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system of Pakistan reached 4.37 million by FY22 amounting to Rs 681.6 trillion with an annual growth of 53.3% in value. During FY22, paper-based transactions declined by 1.0% in volume though its value grew to Rs 190.4 trillion, almost 25.6% higher than last year.

According to the State Bank’s Annual Payment Systems Review, the number of conventional bank account holders increased by 4.5 million, from 63 million account holders in 2021 to 67.5 million in 2022. On the other hand, branchless banking accounts increased from 74.6 million to 88.5 million, a growth of 18.6%.

Give me the cash, but digitally

Considering cash transactions are still predominant, the ATM network in Pakistan needs to be strong to cater to needs. The ATMs network in the country also grew by 4.8% during the year reaching 17,133 ATMs.

A total of 692.3 million transactions were carried out through ATMs which amounted to Rs 9.6 trillion, 19.2% higher than FY21. Meanwhile, cash withdrawals from ATMs picked up from 577.3 million in volume and Rs7.29 trillion in value in 2020-21, to 670.6 million in volume and Rs8.6 trillion in value. That’s a growth of 16.1% in volume and 18% in value over the previous year.

Plastic money on my mind

There were 42.4 million payment cards in circulation in FY22 including 71.1% or 30.16 million debit cards; 24.3% or 10.3 million social welfare cards; 4.2% or 1.79 million credit cards and the rest were pre-paid and ATM only cards.

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