Pakistan to develop its own E-Payment Gateway

On May 16 2019, we got to know that the US-based financial service company better known as PayPal will not be inaugurating its operations in Pakistan as mentioned by the Information Technology Minister Maroof Afzal.

For those unaware; Paypal is a financial service company used by people and businesses alike to make payments. Since Pakistan is not included in the PayPal user base, Pakistani citizens cannot make use of PaPal services.

This was over 4 months ago. Now we’re hearing different news as the Federal Minister of Information and Technology, Fawad Chaudhry, mentioned this Wednesday that Pakistan is very close to opening its very own e-payment gateway.

He went on to explain how Pakistan is developing its own e-payment gateway would assist in recording the country’s wealth and the ministry was now traversing the correct path.

The Federal Minister also explained that the test launch was inconclusive due to unfinished back-end work, following this he added that “In order to launch it immediately we will need help from China”.

In retrospect, it is noteworthy to remember that Fawad Chaudhry stated on 26th May 2019 that an online payment system was in its development stage. This was mentioned at the same time Pakistan launched its very own moon sighting app called The Ruet.

This news is especially engaging because of the flexibility it will provide in terms of payment transactions, and how the government reneged on the claim that they will begin PayPal operations in Pakistan:

With an online e-payment system that replaces debit and credit cards, we can make use of the following services:

• Business and Freelance communities would carry out transactions from their PC or smartphone.
• Faster Transactions.