Comment by Riaz Haq on January 19, 2023 at 5:08pm

SBP
@StateBank_Pak
#SBP journey of digitization achieves another significant milestone, as the Raast Person to Person (P2P) payments cross PKR 1 trillion in a span of just 11 months. SBP thanks all stakeholders who are part of this journey and especially the customers for using #Raast.

https://twitter.com/StateBank_Pak/status/1616098619668439043?s=20&a...

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 22, 2023 at 8:00pm

#India's #Internet Growth is Stalling! #Mobile internet subscriber growth has slipped to single digits from scorching double digits between 2016 and 2020. Sale of #mobilephones fell to 151 million units last year, down from a peak of 168 million in 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64293857

By Soutik Biswas

With more than a billion users, India boasts the world's second largest mobile phone market.

Yet, internet growth in this vast market appears to have stalled.

In October 2022, the country's telecom regulator counted 790 million wireless broadband subscribers, people who access the internet on mobile phones. That was barely a million more subscribers than what it recorded in August 2021. Growth in mobile internet subscribers has now slipped to single digits from scorching double digits between 2016 and 2020.

Smartphones are the main gateway to go online - and this is where growth is flattening. India currently has some 650 million smartphone users but the pace of growth has slowed. Sale of mobile phones fell to 151 million units last year, down from a peak of 168 million in 2021, according to Counterpoint, a market research firm. A single-digit growth in sales is predicted this year.

Up until three years ago, users were buying a new smartphone every 14-16 months, according to IDC, another market research firm. But now they are looking for an upgrade every 22 months or so.

One reason is that smartphone prices have gone up since the pandemic because of rising component costs, a weakening rupee and supply chain disruptions involving China, the world's largest smartphone maker. Nearly 90% of the more than 300 components in India-made smartphones are imported.

At home, a slowing economy, loss of jobs and a resultant squeeze on incomes means less money in the wallet for a pricier new phone. "The slowdown in internet growth should be seen as an indicator of the state of the economy," says Nikhil Pahwa, a digital rights campaigner.

The average price of a smartphone is now around 22,000 rupees ($269; £220), up from 15,000 rupees two years ago, according to Navkendar Singh of IDC. For a market of its size, India is remarkably price sensitive: 80% of the devices sold here cost less than 20,000 rupees. "This is a real cause of concern. The world's second largest mobile phone market has a smartphone penetration which is nowhere close to China, which has the largest market," says Mr Singh.

Some like Anuj Gandhi, founder of Plug and Play Entertainment, wonder whether India's smartphone market has hit the buffers. "Where will more growth come from when there are so many people still living in poverty?" he says.

India has more than 350 million users of "dumbphones" - basic handsets, or feature phones - who can potentially move to smartphones if they can afford it. Almost half of these people use devices that cost less than 1,500 rupees.

Stung by higher prices of devices and data, only 35 million Indians upgraded from feature to smartphones in 2022, compared to 60 million every year before Covid struck, according to Tarun Pathak of Counterpoint. "The feature to smart phone migration has slowed down considerably," he says.

What is not always accounted for is a thriving and informal second-hand [refurbished phones] market that could be fulfilling the need for "cheap" smartphones. "The second-hand market is meeting some of this demand. But we are not really growing the base," says Mr Singh.
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A slowdown in internet growth isn't good news for India. Without a smartphone, it becomes difficult for many to access government welfare benefits, rations and vaccines, among other things. More than 250 million transactions are being made every day this month alone on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), a government-backed real-time cashless transaction platform using mobile applications. India's central bank talks about a "less-cash, less-card society" by 2025.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 23, 2023 at 7:56am

Here’s how emerging economies are investing in a digital future | World Economic Forum


https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/davos2023-digital-fdi-initia...

Digital transformation is rapidly taking place, and we need the right governance frameworks to maximize its positive contribution and enable societies to prosper.

The World Economic Forum and the Digital Cooperation Organization have launched a collaboration – the Digital FDI Initiative – to identify the biggest challenges to growing the digital economy by helping implement policies and measures that will create “digital-friendly” investment climates.

Pakistan and Rwanda will be the first two countries to be supported by this new initiative to create an enabling environment for their digital future. More countries are in the pipeline to join the initiative and will be announced in the near future soon.


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With unemployment rates raised by COVID-19, the digital economy presents an opportunity to create innovative new jobs and stimulate entrepreneurialism in new subsectors of the economy, like e-commerce and fintech.

Key to these solutions will be development of digital infrastructure and empowering populations with the tools to participate in the digital economy. Access to the internet is regarded as one of these metrics. In 2020, however, only 53% of people, and 16% of the world’s poorest, had access to the internet.

Government and private sector investment in the necessary infrastructure, hardware and software to boost this interconnectivity is therefore crucial to targeting growth in new sectors in pursuit of the SDGs.

If there’s one thing that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us, it’s that digital transformation is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for growing emerging economies. To grow the digital economy, markets must attract and facilitate the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI), which brings not only capital but also knowledge, technology and know-how.

Yet attracting “digital FDI” requires specific enabling policies and measures vis-à-vis traditional FDI because digital firms operate different business models, as delineated in the Forum’s thought-leading Digital FDI white paper, which presented the results of a global investor survey on the most important policies, regulations and measures for firms’ decision to invest in the digital economy (Figure 1).

4 pillars of digital FDI
Based on our previous work, we’ve learnt that policies, regulations and measures to attract and facilitate digital FDI can be thought of as falling into four pillars (Figure 2): (a) those that enable investment in new digital activities (e.g. ridesharing apps); (b) those that enable investment in the adoption of digital services by existing firms (e.g. telemedicine or mobile banking); (c) those that enable investment in digital infrastructure, which will not only be driven by the policy and regulatory framework but also by physical considerations; and finally (d), outward digital FDI, which looks at the various home-country measures that can be taken to not only increase outward FDI, but also home-country benefits that help reach national development goals.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 23, 2023 at 7:59am

Here is How Much Internet Pakistanis Consumed in 2022

https://propakistani.pk/2023/01/17/here-is-how-much-internet-pakist...

Every Pakistani broadband user consumed 81 GB of data in FY22, which showed double-digit growth of 11 percent as compared to the average yearly internet consumption which stood at 73 GB per person in FY21.

During the period under review, 8,970 petabytes of mobile data usage was reported in Pakistan, indicating a 31 percent increase from the previous year. Five years ago, mobile data usage in the country stood at 1,262 petabytes.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 13, 2023 at 1:38pm

Pakistani startups raised $355 million last year. Bangladeshi startups raised $109 million in 2022.


https://www.riazhaq.com/2023/01/digital-pakistan-2022-broadband.html


https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/shopup-debt-financing-327996


Pakistan IT exports were $2.6 billion in last fiscal year, compared to Bangladesh's $592 million.


https://www.thedailystar.net/business/economy/news/it-exports-cross...


https://www.techjuice.pk/it-industry-of-pakistan-is-exported-2-66-b...

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 16, 2023 at 8:45am

#Fintech #startup #AdalFi raises $7.5 million in seed funding to fix #Pakistan's broken lending system. It provides #AI-powered credit scoring and underwriting models, along with critical infrastructure to power smart, instant loans for #consumers & #SMEs https://www.finextra.com/newsarticle/41814/adalfi-raises-75-million...

AdalFi, a Pakistan-based fintech providing credit scoring data and lending technology to banks, has raised $7.5 million in Seed funding.

The funding round was led by Cotu Ventures, Chimera Ventures, Fatima Gobi Ventures and Zayn Capital alongside angel investors including execs from Plaid.

AdalFi says it's ambition is to fix Pakistan's "broken" loans market, which currently relies on banks performing multiple manual checks on customers in the absence of any reliable credit scoring data.

The AdalFi tech stack provides AI-powered credit scoring and underwriting models, alongside the critical infrastructure to power smart, instant loans for consumers and SMEs. These include unsecured loan products such as term loans, credit cards and revolving finance facilities for consumers and SMEs respectively.

Within two years, AdalFi has signed up 14 banks - including seven out of the top ten - and grown loan volumes by 30% month on month for the last 19 months.

AdalFi operates on a revenue sharing model which captures any downside risk exposure to banks such that any loan losses are accounted for, pro-rata, in fees due to AdalFi.

Salman Akhtar, CEO and co-founder of AdalFi comments: “Pakistan has 50 million bank accounts yet only two million of these individuals and businesses have any credit relationship with their bank. The high cost of loan origination driven by physical verification of identity, assets and financial health (in the absence of credit scoring) has restricted credit access to a thin, top tier of customers. AdalFi’s digital lending platform allows partner banks to instantly credit score the other 95% of their existing customers who have never been lent to and cross-sell loans to them.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 17, 2023 at 8:32pm

PostEx acquires Call Courier to become Pakistan’s largest e-commerce service provider

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/29/postex-acquires-call-courier-to-b...


Pakistani fintech PostEx has acquired logistics service provider Call Courier, creating what it describes as the largest e-commerce service provider in the country. PostEx will now serve 1.3 million users with over 8,000 merchants across 500 cities in Pakistan, and is on track to having a monthly loan book of more than $12 million.

The acquisition means that Call Courier will become a whollyowned subsidiary under the group name. PostEx provides services like upfront payments in a country where more than 90% of e-commerce payments are still completed in cash, and revenue-based financing for e-commerce sellers and SMEs.

PostEx co-founder and CEO Omer Khan told TechCrunch that according to the World Bank, about 100 million adults in Pakistan don’t have a bank account. As a result, businesses have limited access to working capital and lack adequate cash flow. On the other hand, consumers are wary of digital transactions, and even many who have bank accounts still prefer to pay cash on delivery for items ordered online.


But cash on delivery is problematic for e-commerce businesses because they have a higher rejection rate at the door. Furthermore, funds from cash on delivery purchases often take up to two to three weeks to be deposited into a business’ banking account, compared to a few days for digital payments.

As a result, PostEx’s founding team decided there was potential to build a reliable logistics service provider, plus upfront cash. Upfront payments mean that online vendors no longer have to wait through long payment cycles, and have better cash flow.

“We’re out there making it simpler for businesses to reach out to more customers, take care of their delivery needs and provide them with upfront liquidity,” said Khan. “This is essential for smaller businesses that need every penny to sustain themselves.”

In terms of competition, Khan says PostEx’s novelty factor is its hybrid of fintech and logistics. It has raised $8.6 million to date, and its backers include Zayn Capital, Global Founder Capital, MSA Capital, RTP, FJ Labs and Shorooq.

In a statement, Senator Afnan Ullah Khan, a member of the Prime Minister’s IT Task Force Committee said, “This acquisition shows the importance of close collaboration between fintech and logistics highlighting the importance of access to capital. This acquisition makes PostEx the largest e-commerce service provider in the market, showing the potential of startups for challenging incumbents. It’s refreshing to see new solutions to old problems.”

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 18, 2023 at 10:54am

ChatGPT will transform edtech, educational content creation, say experts at KLF
Panel discussion stresses on need to incorporate AI in curriculums for win-win results

https://www.brecorder.com/news/40227107

Experts from the technology space in Pakistan agreed that the availability of ChatGPT has transformed edtech and educational content creation.

They also noted that it will prove to be a challenge for educators because students are now becoming prone to using the chatbot for their assignments and homework, making it difficult for teachers to assess the performance of the candidate.

Users say Microsoft’s Bing chatbot gets defensive and testy

Speaking on the second day of 14th Karachi Literature Festival, they stated that artificial intelligence (AI) was set to disrupt the education segment of the world.

The panel discussion, titled ‘Edtech-The New Normal’, stressed the need to reform the curriculum of educational institutions to incorporate new developments in technology so they can utilise it in everyday work. They admitted that technology should act as an enabler for a humans in daily lives.

Knowledge Platform Founder and CEO Mahboob Mahmood said that plagiarism checks are a technical problem with chatbots like ChatGPT.

“We cannot fight ChatGPT with 20th century tools. We will need 21st century technology for that,” he said. “The chatbot, however, promises personalisation of education.”

Pakistan’s edtech startup Out-Class raises $500,000

Speaking on the occasion, Katalyst Labs founder and CEO Jehan Ara stated that Stanford University has taken a lead in combating chatbots and developed Detect GPT to check if an article was generated through a chatbot. According to her, Detect GPT is 95% accurate.

Daraz Pakistan Managing Director Ehsan Saya said that while ChatGPT was personalisation of education, it is light years behind in what it can do. He was of the view that the chatbot will be updated from time to time to offer new services.

Startup ‘MyTutorPod’ used latest tools to ensure maximum productivity during pandemic

Online education in Pakistan

The speakers pointed out opportunities and challenges surrounding online education in Pakistan.

Mahmood highlighted that edtech took off in Pakistan at the outset of Covid-19 and later its popularity retreated.

“Lately, it is witnessing genuine growth because people have become sophisticated while using it,” he said. “We are one to two years away from inflection point of Edtech.”

Pakistan’s edtech startup Maqsad raises $2.1 million in pre-seed funding

Jehan stated that connectivity is a huge issue hindering the growth of Edtech in the country. “Even big cities like Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad see usual disruption in signals and this problem is rampant in small cities.”

She stressed upon addressing connectivity problem on war footing. She also called for improving access to education for people with disabilities.

“The disabled population should also be part of diversity. Next year, KLF should have sign language interpreters in sessions so that hearing impaired people can participate,” she recommented.

She also said that lack of will of people to send their kids to educational institutions was also a problem.

“Some people don’t want to send their sons to schools and force them to earn while they don’t send their daughters because they wear a veil.”

Oxford University Press (OUP) Pakistan Management Director Arshad Saeed Husain stated that such students can utilise edtech and study from home at the time of their convenience.

Edkasa: the startup using TikTok to spark students’ love for learning

He also added that people usually question what is the future of OUP amid rapid rise in edtech, ebooks and online education.

“The answer is that we create content and books are one classification of content. We had ventured into digital education long time back. Digital is the future.”

He underlined that blended approach in education is needed where both print and digital content will be needed to study.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 18, 2023 at 7:56pm

Pakistan ID boss to head UNDP digital transformation committee as World Bank mulls funding | Biometric Updat

https://www.biometricupdate.com/202302/pakistan-id-boss-to-head-und...

World Bank considers $78M project for digital public services
Malik has previously worked on identity projects with both the World Bank and UNDP. ProPakistani reports that the World Bank will consider the US$78 million ‘Pakistan: Digital Economy Enhancement Project’ that seeks a more holistic approach to digital government services for citizens and businesses.

While Pakistan has relatively robust national ID and payment systems (with links to improve service and inclusion), a lack of interoperability frameworks has limited public and private efforts for secure data exchange.

The country lacks certain elements of digital infrastructure and digital government, notes the report, though acknowledges that nearly four million citizens have been a smartphone app called the Pakistan Citizen’s Portal for accessing services or submitting grievances.

A data protection bill is still in draft form and requires more work, finds the World Bank documentation. Together these issues mean a lack of implementation support for digital projects, despite policy instruments at the federal and provincial levels. World Bank analysis therefore finds opportunities are being missed in the country’s digital transformation.

A recent opinion piece in Pakistan Today also covered elements of progress in the digital economy in the country.

Property registrars go biometric in Sindh province
All offices of the Sub-Registrar Property in Sindh province will be equipped with biometric identity verification systems to prevent impersonation in property registration, reports The Express Tribune.

NADRA Technologies Limited (NTL), a subsidiary of NADRA, signed an agreement with the Board of Revenue Sindh in Karachi, the province’s largest city. The system will be linked to the NADRA database and used to check the identity of property buyers and sellers.

The development of such systems was reported on in July 2022, with a similar biometric verification system slated for the Capital Development Authority.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 18, 2023 at 7:57pm

1,800 TCF schools: Jazz digitally enabling TCF to implement tech-enabled learning - Pakistan - Business Recorder

https://www.brecorder.com/news/40227050


KARACHI: Jazz, Pakistan’s leading digital operator and a part of VEON Group, is digitally enabling The Citizens Foundation (TCF) to implement tech-enabled learning across 1,800 TCF schools and ensuring an advanced learning experience for over 250,000 students nationwide.

As part of this initiative, 23 computer labs have already been revamped, and a school management app has been introduced in all TCF schools, offering efficiency, transparency, and accuracy of data collection and management for all students, faculty, and non-faculty employees.

The blended learning solution for primary students is an innovative approach that combines online and offline education to provide a more interactive and engaging learning experience, while the computer curriculum under DLP (Digital Literacy Program) for grades 6-8 is specifically designed to equip students with digital-age skills.

The digitization initiative also facilitated the translation of books and learning materials for grades 6 and 7 into Urdu, creating a bilingual curriculum, along with a scripted bilingual lesson plan. In addition, 700 Android phones were delivered to schools across the entire TCF network, which aided in implementation of blended learning program.

Commenting on the initiative, Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim said, "We are proud to have collaborated with TCF on this important initiative to digitize schools and provide students with access to the latest technology. Driven by the impetus to digitally empower youth and to assist the Government of Pakistan in realizing its Digital Pakistan vision, Jazz continues to club its resources and expertise in creating long-term, sustainable solutions and partnerships that uplift individuals and the larger community."

Additionally, the female teacher training program is a crucial part of the grant as it will digitally empower women to take on more leadership roles and optimize their performance, which has been a key focus area for Jazz toward building an integrated and equitable society.

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