The BNPL startup targeting Pakistan's unbanked majority

Welcome back to another episode of ThoughtBank. Thanks. आज मेरे साथ में बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान all the way from I would say Toronto or Karachi. Not sure where he is these days. In Islamabad इससे पहले भी as well. RF लखानी साहब हमारे साथ मौजूद है. RF भाई first of all thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. It's actually an honor क्योंकि मैं अब कुछ देर पहले उनको यही बता रहा था कि I have probably seen nearly all of your episodes. Thank you so And that's my morning walks best thing to do. ज़बरदस्त. Makes me super super happy. It's a, it's a high effort, low viewership content. तो जब भी कोई आकर यह बोलता ना तो दिल को खुशी है. Thank you so much for that. मैं start करूंगा conversation से. पहले तो I'll just थोड़ा सा format में change करूंगा. Normally we go within early life and then उस तरह से. But today I'd like to understand, I know that your personal experience is very diverse. You've been in the film and drama industry. You've been in the, what how would you call it? Consumer electronics industry. You recently are actively focusing on a startup, Kist Bazaar. जी. जिसको हम details से बात करेंगे. तो how does that work? How does one come across so many different nodes of work and are able to manage all of that?

The serious answer is that I look for those opportunities. Fact is that they've all come to me in one with the other. आपने movie की बात की, friend of mine was very active in dramatics when he was in school. Always wanted to make a movie. So he wanted to make a movie fund in 2017. And he came to me and he said that, you know, you would you like to participate in it? And I said, sure, you know, I mean, बड़ा अच्छा idea है. मैं Canada में रहा करता था. And just like any other investment, I thought this would be a good investment too. And I said, who all are in there? So he said, one of them is Pakistan key, one of the highest number of screen owners. He'll be the anchor investor in there and then you can come in. And the idea is that we do six or eight movies a year and we, I mean, we make the industry better and we make money out of it, right? I mean, I think anything where you don't make money, it's not a sustainable thing. Absolutely. That's that's my thought. It could be very controversial but that's how I see it. It should be a win win for everyone. तो movie का fund जब बनने लगा तो Pakistan में indian movies ban हो गई. Right. जिसकी वजह से वो भाई जो थे वो इस fund से निकल गए. उन्होंने कहा भाई अब तो वैसे ही sustainable होना ही मुश्किल है because Indian movie जैसे ही ban होती है, cinema का foot fall जो है वह 70% टूट जाता है. Oh, so I would have thought कि that would have been an opportunity but actually. Unfortunately not yet because I think what we are creating, think we create great stuff but I think whatever we are creating is still not as much in demand as what शाहरुख खान gives out. Absolutely. Right. So so he got out of, got out of the whole fund and at that point we were already talking to one group of people for a movie called Perchi. Right. And they're all Islamabad based, so I'm sure you know them. So it was too late to back out. So then I went in, and then I went in as a producer. अच्छा. Independently. Independently. तो वो दिन और आज का दिन between 2017 and now I have done two movies co produced, one drama co produced and one drama on my own. So every year, every year and half I do one but अब यह इतना specially dramas अब Pakistan में I hope कोई भी drama वाला ने कोई channel वाला नहीं देख रहा हो ना मेरी relationship खराब हो जाएगी. वह एक एक इतना easy process वन गया है कि there is a script, there is a director, the cast is decided, the locations are decided. अब उसमें से आपको यह देखना है कि जो आपका on ground production manager है, he is doing what he is told. Other than that everything happens. It's it's like running a factory. आप देखिए कितने channels हैं, कितने drama हैं. आपको लगा हर जगह producer बैठता है या नहीं producer जाता. मतलब यानी I can tell you the best movies that have been produced out of Pakistan, producer has never seen the set. अच्छा, interesting.

And have you been able to make the money?

Yeah, so परछी, so again going on records with this. Perchi and Heer Manja, the two movies that IQO produced with Harim Faruk and, इमरान रज़ा काज़मी, the real producer on ground. Both, were decent. Not extravagantly,

amazing, but they were all decent. अगर मैं purely business trends से पूछ रहा तो what's the percentage of return that one can potentially, I am not saying कि मुझे उन particular films का बनाए but on average कितना percent year on year आप अपने पैसे को essentially?

So drama ही के अंदर short shot number आ जाता है because I don't know if you know drama बनने से पहले बिक जाता है. ठीक है. वो एक per episode price decide हो जाती है channel girl gets on board with everything so you know उसका उन्नीस बीस हो जाएगा. So if I have to answer then drama, you are looking at maybe about 25% year over year. अच्छा. Right? Movie is completely unpredictable. अब मैं आपको example देता हूं. हमारी पहली movie was maybe worth about चार करोड़ रुपए of cost and it did बारह करोड़ का box office. We don't get बारह करोड़ in our hand to start Right, right. But what we started reducing in that movie was product placement. McDonald's was great. McDonald's gave us 5,000,000 for that movie. Right. We got some from in those days and some others, etcetera, etcetera. So now it all depends on what else can you do with it. Right. Can you sell it on Netflix? Can you sell it to, to a person who wants to make the brand of their image go higher? Right. Then it makes a lot of difference. We were the only movie that probably released in those days in France, in Saudi Arabia. We actually did a premiere in Saudi Arabia. That's right. We were the first movie, outside movie that went to Saudi Arabia in 02/1718.

So, yeah, I mean a lot of those were just to maybe enhance the image of the industry. मगर मेरा end concept यह था कि it should be a material success for us to keep on doing it. Yeah. For it to be sustainable. For the money to actually come back. Yeah. यह नहीं cake देवा डाला, उसके बाद दिन वाला and then, you know, मुफान. So for us, in both the cases, it definitely came back. And and dramas के अंदर जो बाहर के dramas होते हैं एक pilot shoot होता है वह जाता है studio, studio कहता है ठीक है focus group होता है focus group बताता है कि यार ठीक है हो जाएगा and then drama essentially shoot होना शुरू होता है. Pakistan में इस तरह का process है या is it more like कि script वगैरह IT के approve हो गया पूरा drama shoot किया और अब जाकर बेचना है किसी ना किसी studio को. तो इस बात को edit आप कर सकते हैं बाद में.

Pakistan के अंदर आप किसी भी channel में चले जाएं. देखिए Pakistan में तीन बहुत बड़े channel हैं और बारह उससे थोड़े से नीचे channels हैं. I've worked with Jio, ARY and हम. So if you go to any of these channels, they normally have a lot of scripts ready, written by good people, and they would like you to take one of those scripts up. So because they are giving you the script, they are oking on the director. Yes, it's pre approved. They are oking on the locations too. Right. क्या आपको पीछे यह दिखाना है, यह इतनी minute की होगी. दूसरी story यह है कि एक दिन के अंदर जो हम नौ घंटा shoot करते हैं उसका चौंतीस minute का edit निकलता है. अच्छा. सिर्फ. Right. तो अब अगर चौंतीस minute का edit निकालना है तो there is a lot of room to play around. For example, एक actress आ रही है, वह यहां से phone उठा रही है. This could be three minutes or this could be three seconds. Right? So depending how fast you want that thought to go through, that is done by the channel and not by us. The edit is done by the channel. We give them a footage of maybe नौ घंटा every day और उसमें से वह तीस, पैंतीस, average चौंतीस minute निकाल रहे होते हैं. अच्छा. And we are paid on that. We are paid on the minutes that will actually go on on TV and not what

we produced. Have you guys, like, sort of explored the

video on demand side, like, again, Netflix Yeah. And So video on demand, so I've had a lot of conversations with Netflix, Probably because they are easier to access if you live outside. And Netflix का एक बड़ा अजीब बात थी 2,018 की बता रहा हूं. They said कि यार Pakistan has 50,000 paid users only. Right. India has 5,000,000. हम कहां से बनाए content brown? आप से क्यों उनसे? हां हां. Right? So so that was the thing. But now z five has made a lot of content from Pakistan even though Indian channels are not allowed to portray पाक्सानी actors. मगर अगर आप z five उठाकर देखें तो आधा content Pakistan में बना है. Which is great. Yeah. So but how how is it? Money wise, I don't know. Haven't really export that this never been a full time thing for me but I'm sure it's decent because good producers are doing it. And and are there good producers talking to Netflix as well or is that something जोकेदाहेरे because if your proximity Not yet. अच्छा I'll because the reason why I'm saying this is मेरे तराके बड़ी basic सी चीज़ आती है.

Netflix के ऊपर आपका conventional जो है ना so so Pakistan में एक industry बड़ी standardized है. हो जाएगा but generally it's a very standard drama industry उस तरह से. So, do you expect the channels to take that risk? Like you said it has to be a win win and they have a they have a good business going. They don't wanna sort of risk it. फिर आप expect करते हो कि शायद मैं video on demand से वो कर सकूँगा. अच्छा video on demand के ऊपर अगर मैं जाता हूँ जाके मैं कहता हूँ कि यार मैं conventional director उठाऊंगा, मैं conventional actor उठाऊंगा. तो the fact is कि video on demand की audience भी digital है और जो mass market है वह बैठी हुई है और वह YouTube पर देख रही है अपने conventional dramas. तो digital की audience जब आती है मैं इस तरह से मैं साल देता हूं कि मेरे पास on on this podcast people have actually sent me. So we do an easy पैसा jazz cash and people have sent me दस हज़ार रुपया from interior sinh. Amazing. After they watch the content. So Pakistan में मुझे तो होता है कि लोग subscription के लिए पैसे ही नहीं देंगे. वह बड़ा change हो गया है. Subscription तो यह है ना कि मैं पैसे दूं और मैं consume करूं मुझे तो लोगों ने after consumption ही भेजा है as as a go of goodwill. I know for a fact that a lot of other creators जो digital first creators हैं they are I mean I am not उस तरह से but there are lot of people जो skits करते हैं you know TikTokers हैं वो सारे के सारे. अगर कोई formula ऐसा भेजा चाहे Netflix को जाकर के sir आप एक show वो करें sanction करें not a very expensive one maybe like an indie show but have some of these top tier digital artists in them. I can guarantee you the pull that these digital artists will have in just getting their subscribers in for the first time because ये तो सुबह शाम बेच रहे हैं, ये shampoo भी बेच रहे हैं, ये digital services भी बेच रहे हैं, ये BNPL भी बेच रहे हैं online.

यह services for video and demand भी बेच सकते हैं. End में मसला Netflix देखिए Netflix Amazon अलग अलग है. हम Netflix की बात कर लेते हैं. हां. Netflix का सबसे बड़ा मसला यह है कि आपके paying customers बहुत कम है. मैं वही कह रहा हूं. अगर उनको अच्छा भी लगेगा तो वह आपके show की वजह से क्या हमें pay कर देंगे?

Digital creators को उठाऊंगा. अच्छा India ने ना early on Netflix में यही किया था. They got their digital एक show था उनका little things. जी बिल्कुल. Digital first show था उसको लेकर गए. अच्छा उससे हुआ कि या क्या कि जो digital का consumer था let's say बेकार films हो गई या मूरू हो गया या जुनेदा crumbs of the world हो गए. जी. वो अगर एक Netflix show में star करेंगे ना तो उनके socials के ऊपर तो उनके आ रहा होगा कि भाई भाई Pakistan का first Netflix show भाई उसके अंदर है. Yeah, but I I don't know. So recently this has happened.

माहिरा has made a drama with शाहवीर. I think it will be good idea for you to ask about the numbers are. हमने भी अपनी movie की promotion में शाहीर को लेकर कहते हैं and people were crazy when शाहीर walked in and then we thought the baby the next movie should have शाहीर in it. Yeah. Right? But I think the acceptance of TikTokers and

YouTube stars is not the same on the other media. On the other media, absolutely. Not on let's say cinema or even TV. Yeah. Laptop

है कि laptop है I am ready to convert. So I think it's a good idea to find out इसका कैसा रहा है? I'm sure what you're saying makes sense if it's if it's going to a digital place instead of we call it like an OTT place instead of going to TV or or a movie screen. Makes sense, makes sense. अच्छा,

moving away from the film and media industry. You know, I know that you're,

let's talk about the startup जो आपने recently, how long has it been? किस बाज़ार? So, formally started in November 2021. तो यह आठवां महीना है. सही है. And how is that going? I think amazing. जो हम सोच रहे थे, उससे कहीं बेहतर. I am sure इस seat पर जो भी आता है, वह यही कहता है कि मुझसे अच्छा कोई startup नहीं है. But but I think दोनों चीज़ें serve हो रही हैं. Profit, we are not a loss making startup like a lot of other startups because at 47 I don't want to get into a loss making startup. And I think the purpose that we had in mind when we started this whole thing, we were very comfortable in Canada what we were doing. Mean, my principal company does good over export which, I mean, which which is very decent. तो idea था कि इसके पीछे थोड़ा सा एक social motive भी हो. Right. तो I think वह time के साथ और ज़्यादा serve हो रहा है और हम इसको refine भी करते जा रहे हैं. हम खुद tweak कर रहे हैं अपने आप को कि अच्छा यह जो हम कर रहे हैं इससे ठीक है we are making the numbers but इससे क्या फरक पड़ा? इसकी जगह यह कर लें तो क्या फ़र्क़ पड़ेगा? एक example if you allow me पहले हमने सारे products list कर दिए अपनी side पर कि TV भी है, fridge भी है, bike भी है, mobile phone भी है, जो लेना है आप ले लें. And to our surprise, way different to the last twenty five years which we haven't spoken about. Cell phone was 65% of the demand. 65% of orders were cell phones. अच्छा. So we were discussing amongst us such कि यार यह हो क्या आ रहा है? तो और उसको एक ही आप चीज़ allow कर रहे हो तो वह mobile phone ले रहा है. हां. तो, we started advertising mobile phone more in the first few months क्योंकि हमें numbers भी चाहिए थे. Then we sat down and we, we were thinking कि यार इसका real impact क्या आ रहा है? Is that making a difference? Let's do something which also creates some sort of a difference. We started work working towards refurbished laptops. Right. Today refurbished laptop is second highest selling product from us. अच्छा. You ask any other company, any other किस्तों वाली दुकान or online system, refurb laptops will not be a big part even though there's 100,000 laptops coming to this country every month. Right. But it's not going to individuals. It's going more to businesses. It's going to maybe government to some level. So our thought was that with all the issues that are going on, सबसे easy हाल यह है कि यहां पर जितने भी बच्चे आ रहे हैं उन सबको एक laptop दे दें, जो हमारे शायद prime ministers आप भी करना चाह रहे हैं या कर चुके हैं और फिर उनसे क्या है कि अच्छा अब इतनी सारी और sites available हैं. Upwork है, Fiverr है, दूसरी sites है, उस पर जाकर अपना product दें. अच्छा, हमें थोड़ा सा एक advantage यह है कि because me being from the West and having some interactions in Silicon Valley, जो CTOs आज वहां है after this crisis of last six weeks, I think the best thing that's happened to Pakistan is this crisis. अच्छा. यह जो cash flow का crisis आ रहा है, इसका impact CTOs के दिमाग में यह आ रहा है कि now we need cheaper labor. Now we cannot give $300,000 to a guy getting out of Yale or getting out of Stanford. Let's find someone on Upwork or Fever and then get them on board as our as our offline person. Right. So I think there's a lot of potential for these young kids who will come out. I'll tell you my story. When we started Kiss Bazaar, we had two really good designers. One graphic designer and one WordPress processors. Three three months down, एक ने आकर हमसे कहा कि I am I am leaving the job. I said, what happened यार? We are paying you 75,000 rupees. You were paid 45,000 last job. He said, sir, I am paid $150 a week. Beat that. कैसे beat करेंगे आप उसको? And now if I go full time, am going to do at least 500 a week or maybe even more. So, you know, $500 is nothing, right? If you look at the seat. But in Pakistan it comes to पांच लाख रुपए, दो सौ दस रुपए के dollar के हिसाब से. And this is a guy fresh out of NED, not out of lums or GIK or Stanford. Yeah. So I think if if we and people around us can focus more on giving these people that laptop to take home, वह ठीक है वह game भी खेलेंगे, वह कुछ भी करेंगे. Maybe conflict होगा मगर कल मैंने disturb 91 attend किया था, disturb 92 sorry attend किया वहां पर एक gaming panel था. वह gaming panel में चार पांच बच्चे थे और उन्होंने कहा कि off the records हमारा average आदमी का sale दस million dollar का है. और वह दस millions भी कम है, वह ज़्यादा इसलिए नहीं है क्योंकि हमें अगर वह चीज़ अपनी game बनाकर publish करनी है तो हमें एक million dollar advertising के लिए बाहर भेजना है जो हमें इस वक्त state bank शायद allow नहीं कर रही I don't know the reality but यह allow कर रही है. तो हम यह करें कि दूसरों के लिए बना रहे हैं. अगर आप हमें allow कर दें we will go five times more and yeah we will make the money but government will get dollars. Yeah. So again I spoke to one of those kids. I said, so how did you start? You look like a very humble guy, right? He said, yeah, you know, we were just friends. We'd love to just move around the city and in Karachi one day we found this place from where we bought a laptop online, sorry laptop installments and I said, what was that place called? So he said, यार नाम नहीं पता पर शारायफ है sir मैं nursery पर कोई जगह थी. I said, and what year was that? And he said, he gave me a year and those are our place. अच्छा. He had taken a laptop from us on installments and he did whatever he did with it. Yeah. Paid games, मां बाप को तंग कर दिया होगा उस समय ज़िंदगी के अंदर. हां. But now he is exporting games and he is one of the four largest exporters of Pakistan. Very cool. You mentioned

your place that is giving laptops on installment. But your किस्त बाज़ार is eight months old. Tell me a bit about the history of this place and what you've Yeah. Been up So,

so we, so I actually joined a company, which had three founders in it, in 1995. And the whole idea behind that company was, किस्तों में सामान बेचना है? Whatever the cash prize is, let's divide it in six installments and make it easier for people to buy. Not because we love people but also because more people will come to us. And how did we advertise? We went to all the bus stops in Karachi, you know, like, दस पैसे के brochures भारते भारते and that's how we started. Seven, eight years down we were distributors for IBM in Pakistan and Aser in Pakistan. In fact, there was an ad that we placed in 1998 जो हमारे LinkedIn पर है अभी और उस ad के अंदर I remember I got a call from हवाईयु बशीर, the the general manager for Pakistan or country manager for Pakistan at that point and he said, यार what are you doing? You're selling our product on installments and I said to him that I think we will get more sales. He said that's fine, but it's never happened before and अगर आप वह ad देखें तो वह ad में 32 MB RAM है, चार GB hard drive है क्योंकि वह ज़माने की वह top of the line चीज़ थी और उसकी चार हज़ार रुपए एक installment है. 0% financing kind of a thing. So yeah, we have been doing this for a while but offline. किस बाज़ार का idea was to bring it completely online and have an exponential effect. अच्छा, क्योंकि

there may be someone who might be confused. So, थोड़ा सा if I were to ask you, what exactly is बाज़ार? Like, what's the elevator pitch for that So,

easy words में किस्त बाज़ार is, buy now pay later for the unbanked. Okay. हम उनको target करते हैं जो हमारे ख्याल से कहीं और से वह चीज़ें नहीं ले सकते जो उनके घर की requirements हैं. हमारा average customer पच्चीस हज़ार रुपए से पचास हज़ार रुपए earn करता है महीने का. अब आप सोचें एक आदमी जो पच्चीस हज़ार या पचास हज़ार earn करता है वह घर में कोई भी electronic product कैसे ले सकता है? और ना उसकी कोई credit है, ना कोई bank वाला जानने वाला है. उसके पास एक ही option है, दो option है. एक option है कि वह भूल जाएं, वह ना लें. वह सारी ज़िंदगी उसी गुरबत में रहे. दूसरा option यह है कि वह अपनी neighborhood, back to put that word but पठान के पास जाए और वहां पर एक सौ बीस percent interest के ऊपर वह product ले ले और फिर एक दफा वह ले लेता है तो सारी ज़िंदगी उसके पैसे वह दे रहा होता है. Right. तीसरा option जो हमारे आस पास neighborhood दुकानें किस्तों की which I think have done a great job. I was one of them and I think that's why a lot of people have what they have today. उसके पास जाएं. अब हमारा concept किस बाज़ार का यह था कि बहुत सारे लोग घबराते हैं किस्तों की दुकान enter करने से. Reason being पहले तो उनको यह होता है कि यार मैं जानता नहीं हूं. अगर मैं सलीम को जानता होता तो मुझे करीम दे देता. क्योंकि करीम सलीम को जानता है. वह सब कुछ किस्तों पर लेता है. हां. मगर जो middle and middle lower है, वह डरता है किस्तों पर लेने से. तो idea of किस बाज़ार is, you don't need to know anyone. Go online, pick the product that you want. Social guarantees का जो idea है वह ग्रामीण bank ने भी किया हुआ है. When Citibank started and I can go on record saying this, with their credit cards in the nineties. I remember I used to see a team of theirs in our office every day because one of our friends was, one of our partners was friends with the VP at that point and they just wanted to learn how do you give stuff to the common person. यह भाग कैसे नहीं जाते? And we kept on telling them कि यार जो common आदमी है ना वह सबसे ज़्यादा शरीफ है. हां. वह बेचारा सबसे डरता है. हां. यह हम है जिसे मसला है. जब हमने यह IBM laptops वगैरह देना start किया उन installments तो honestly इस पर हमें ज़्यादा बड़ा मसला हुआ because जिन घरों में यह जा रही थी उन घरों में guard अंदर जारे नहीं देता आपको. हां. Secretary phone forward नहीं करती boss को. जबकि एक आम आदमी का phone करें तो वह बेचारा कहता है नहीं कल आ जाएगी अगर आज नहीं आया तो. Yeah. तो तो that's the background what Kiss Bazaar does. It's for everyone. There is literally no discrimination. Even if you are a student, even if you are driver in किसी के घर में तो आपके लिए यह है. That's how we are different with every other BNPL that's out there in the market today. I do think everyone will shift to it But आज I don't think there's anyone in that. And this is not a niche. This is the mass. Right.

अच्छा, इस पर मैं I'll, I'll dive deeper into it now and context मैं देता हूं कि क्या किन areas को मैं explore कर रहा हूं और क्यों? Recently मैंने एक thread पढ़ा on Twitter and it was about this company called Easy Sarmaya or something like that. Okay. It's not a BNPL, but rather a a sort of loan, microfinance scheme of sorts. The company is, SECP registered. It's registered in गिलगथ. इनका यह था कि जी आप online इनकी app download करते हैं और यह आपको छोटे कर्जे तो इन्होंने पूरा उसके बाद वह पचास हज़ार रुपए का loan market करके वह आखिर में आपको आठ दस पंद्रह हज़ार रुपए का loan देते हैं. अब जो Twitter में मैंने पढ़ा वह मैंने एक एक case study पढ़ी. एक बंदा था उसका he is a CFA तो heavy accounting का background उसका. उसका कोई I think it says driver or something जिसने वह loan apply किया. The loan was the the total amount of the loan was 16,000. He got that loan on the May 17. By the June 16 he had returned in one month he had returned 21,000 rupees. ठीक है? अच्छा somehow उनकी terms god loans क्या थी but as of yesterday जो Twitter thread की update आई हुई थी उसके बाद वह 23,000 rupees मज़ीद मांग रहे थे. Now does that make any sense to you? नहीं absolutely doesn't but but you always have these kind of players everywhere. And yeah and that's why I saying कि वह एक तो जो आपने कहा ना कि गली के site पर जो loan shark है. Sir वह loan shark अब digital में भी आ गया है. ठीक है. और और वह registered है और वह वह है. और सबसे बड़ा problem यह है कि जो चूंकि this is the most marginalized, financially marginalized community, You have to try very carefully with them. Because the day they lose हमारा एक बड़ा मसला है on the show we have talked very aggressively about banking of the unbanked population of of whitening the economy of digitizing the economy. जिस दिन आपने इस audience को alienate करके site पर कर दिया और वह एक दफा फ़ंस गया अपने उसमें वह कहेगा यार कभी किसी app को निकाला होगा but अब यह जो मैं आपको बता रहा कि people need to go through this case study. उन्होंने क्या है वह क्या करते हैं वो आपकी जो yes yes yes करवाते हैं न वो आपकी सारी तस्वीर की access निकालते हैं वो contact list पूरी निकालते हैं और आपको वो blackmail करते हैं कि यार ये आपकी तस्वीरें हैं हम out करते हैं मतलब its crazy it is its crazy how this is a regulated entity. Now what I wanna understand is, first of all, Kim, I wanna have the a a view of the transparency of your I want to have a view of exactly the product that you're providing and whether there are caveats to it and, you know, CHR with छोटी मोटी चीज़ें left right किया हैं. And last year I also want to have an understanding of, really the, the model, the the शरीर compliance of it. कि कहने को तो आप कुछ भी करते कि यार ठीक है यार यह चीज़ हम इस तरह के निकाल रहे हैं.

And then you can correct us कि अगर कहीं ऐसा आपको लगता है कि हम कुछ ऐसा कर रहे जब हम नहीं करना चाहिए तो मैं reasoning दूंगा कि हम क्यों कर रहे हैं. ठीक है. So हमारा process यह है कि आप हमसे जब सामान लेते हैं तो आप online अपना नाम पता शराती card number और address डालते हैं, चार चीज़ें डालते हैं. ठीक है. हमारी सबसे important चीज़ आपका ID card number है. आपके ID card number से हमारे system में घूमता है कि आपने लिया या नहीं लिया. उसके बाद आपको एक call आती है, एक खातून किया या एक gentleman किया और वह आपसे कहता है कि हम कहते हैं कोई चीज़ की ज़रूरत नहीं है. हमारे paper पर जो उर्दू में लिखा हुआ है first of all और offline paper है उसमें लिखा होता है आपका नाम पता शरारती card number कहां काम करते हैं तनख्वाह. हम validate भी नहीं करते उसमें नीचे लिखा हुआ है. हम आपकी तनख्वाह validate नहीं करेंगे यह आपके ऊपर है कि आप सही बताएं. हम उससे एक signature लेते हैं आपके सामने. ठीक है. आपसे एक signature लेते हैं, वहां वह chapter close हो जाता है. ठीक है. शाम को इज्जत से rider, हम हम we use rider. So rider is a, is another maybe I am not sure if सलमान ever came to your show, but it's another startup that delivers for the राज़. Right. वह इज्जत से आपके घर में आता है, अपने uniform में deliver करता है ताकि आपके neighbors में कहीं यह story ना आ जाए कि किस बाज़ार से कोई आ रहा है. जब आपको deliver कर रहे होते हैं उस moment पर आप advance payment करते हैं. आप verification के वक्त एक रुपया भी नहीं देते हैं. Ok. तो जब आपके सामान आ रहा होता है, आप सामान देखते हैं सामने तब वह जो चार हज़ार, छह हज़ार जो भी आपका advance बनता है वह आप देते हैं. ठीक है. अब जो price आपसे decide की गई होती है वह normally price का हमारा तरीका यह होता है कि of course कोई भी काम ऐसा नहीं हो सकता जिसमें आप deferred payment terms दें and there is no additional charge. Yeah. So we have only one price which is an installment price. We don't have a cash price. But if today you ask me कि यार in reality if I see the MSRP of dolans, उससे मेरी price में क्या फ़र्क़ होगा अगर मैं किस्तों में ले रहा हूं. अब बारह percent जो हमारे यहां accountants हैं उनको समझ आ जाएगा कि बारह percent का IRR nearly चौबीस percent बनता है. ठीक है. या छब्बीस percent बनता है, right? Depending कि क्या down payment है. तो यह total price आपकी होती है, price पहले decide हो जाती है. We are in all terms शरिया compliant. We have spoken to Mufti's to get a certificate as well. We are just waiting for our NBFC license. NBFC NBFC Non banking financial corporation license from HCCP. Right. Once we get that, the license will come in that name. Right. And the Sharia Compliance will come in the name. Sharia के अंदर तीन चीज़ें जो मेरी understanding है. And I've spoken to two of these who are on Mizan Bank, Habib Bank, UBL, all these places. And they, those are the ones who are certifying us. We're not going with anyone that we feel. So you have spoken to someone from इज़ान bank? Because they are probably at the forefront of शरीर They going to the बुफ्ती on their board. Okay. So that makes And he will be the one who will, his company will be giving us the शरीर compliance. Okay, that's great. तीन चीज़ें हैं. Price शुरू में fix हो जानी चाहिए. Price के ऊपर कोई late charges नहीं होने चाहिए. Price पहले से defined होनी चाहिए. उसमें कोई भी ambiguity नहीं होनी चाहिए कि कल यह हो गया, कि यह जो लोग हैं जो मेरे ख्याल से Pakistan के 70% लोग हैं, क्या यह deserve करते हैं घर में एक TV लेना? क्या यह deserve करते हैं कि इनका एक bike हो ताकि इनको वह bike ही उसे job मिले? उनको वह delivery की job मिले एक mobile phone के साथ. क्या उनके बच्चों के पास एक used laptop होना चाहिए? I mean I know this sounds very cliche and very emotional but the fact is in reality हमारी authorities कहती है नहीं होना चाहिए. हमारी authorities कहती है जो चीज़ वह afford नहीं कर सकते उनको ना दे. हमारी authorities कहती है उनको employment के लिए पैसे दे, उनको business start करने के पैसे दे, उनको consumer discretionary items के लिए पैसे ना दे. I totally disagree with that and twenty years outside may be my concept has changed. मैं समझता हूं कि आज America के अंदर बहुत मसले हैं, Canada में बहुत मसले हैं, मगर हर आदमी के बस basic चीज़ है. एक घर है, एक गाड़ी है. यहां से जो बच्चा बाहर निकलता है, लोग भागने की try कर रहे होते हैं यहां से, वह क्यों निकलते हैं? वहां जाकर पहले वह पांच percent down payment लेकर अपना घर लेगा. तो क्या उसको नहीं लेना चाहिए, उसको wait करना चाहिए जब उसके पास वह पूरे चार लाख dollar आ जाए? क्योंकि उसके कभी नहीं आऐंगे. एक example लेते हैं. दो साल पहले एक super power जो एक bike है वह पचपन हज़ार रुपए की थी. अब let's say मैं सलीम हूं और मैं wait कर रहा हूं कि मेरे पास पचपन हज़ार हो जाएंगे तो मैं ले लूंगा. दो साल बाद मेरे पास हो गए पचपन हज़ार. मगर आज वह 78,000 की bike हो गई. हां हां. तो what do I do now? In a country where inflation is more than 15%, should I wait for that day when I have money to buy every damn thing in my life? या क्या मैं इस तरह की एक चीज़ लेता रहूं? हम एक ज़्यादा item नहीं देते. हम आपको वह सामान नहीं देते जिसके अंदर हमें लगता है कि वह आपकी need नहीं है. For example हम Apple का iPhone आपको unfortunately नहीं दे पाएंगे. हम आपको एक new IBM laptop नहीं दे पाएंगे. हम आपको वह दे पाएंगे जो एक common घर की need है. अच्छा हमारी चीज़ों में अब addition हो रहा है. अब हम multi form के साथ जा रहे to put forms as well. मगर सस्ते वाले forms, not जिसमें backup की अच्छी लगे और आप एक लाख रुपए दे रहे हैं. तो यह concept है and I think so far public has been great with us. Not just in terms of buying, buying तो बहुत आसान है इसमें. But returns में. But in terms of time. I mean I will go on, I mean on record to say this. Our NPL is less than point 5%.

अच्छा.

Our NPL today is less than point 5%. That means everyone is paying. 90% of people people. NPL in this case would be non performing loans. Non performing loans, sorry. NPL का मतलब यह है कि वह लोग जिन्होंने दो महीने से installment नहीं दिए हैं. सही है. Bank छह महीने देखती है, हम दो महीने देखते हैं कि दो महीने से अगर payment नहीं दिया आपने तो आप हमारे लिए defaulter हो गए. We have less than point 5%. दूसरी अच्छी बात यह है कि नौवे percent लोग जो हैं वह digitally payment कर रहे हैं हमें. Digitally payment का मतलब यह है कि अगर आप Jazz Cash, Easy Paisa, हमारे bank account वह bank bank वाले लोग नहीं हैं.

Vendor Right.

So you can go and pay to Kiss बाज़ार और आपका account link जाएगा. तो आपको कुछ करने की ज़रूरत नहीं है. वह आपका नाम हमारे पास आ जाएगा. आपका जो account number है वह आपकी ID है. Very cool. Right? Very cool. So so और और jazz की अच्छी बात यह है कि वह पहला message भी वह आपको भेजते हैं कि आपकी installment due होने वाली है पांच दिन बाद. अच्छा. Yeah. So so that's an advice. And auto deduction facility भी है उसके अंदर या होने वाला होगी eventually? I had the easy पैसा CEO recently and I. I would not do that. अच्छा. I would not do that because I know being on the other side. कि यह ना हो कि तनख्वाह आए और खात काट जाए और फिर. बिल्कुल देखिए मैं मेरा मेरा mortgage था जब मैं क्या नाबू हुआ था पंद्रह साल पहले और down payment भी मैंने लोगों से borrow करके ली थी. जब मैंने वहां sign कर दिया कि हर पांच को मेरी payment निकल जाएगी. अगर मेरे पास job नहीं है और मैं gig worker हूं तो मेरे पास पांच ही जगह पंद्रह को आ सकते हैं, पैसे सत्रह को आ सकते हैं. I want that guy to be flexible enough कि वह कहा कि अच्छा कोई बात नहीं.

Phone for food panda and उनको

पांच तारीख को नहीं आया. So we have just gone under एक हमने B2B deal की है rider के साथ ही कि अगर आपको rider का driver बनना है तो mobile phone और bike अब हमसे किस्तों पर ले लें. अच्छा. And this is an offer to all of them. Food Panda के लिए भी, we were talking to even bike किया at one point कि अगर आपको यह चीज़ें करनी है आपके किसी driver को क्योंकि देखिए उसमें अच्छे पैसे हैं, वह अच्छे पैसे कमा रहे हैं और मैं मुझे याद है मैं आपका कल या परसों Cannon और या Jazz का देख रहा था. सत्तर percent हमारी जो economy है वो ये लोग हैं. हां. जो इस तरह काम कर रहे हैं. ये ये जो लोग blue area के अंदर बड़ी बड़ी office में बैठे हैं ये हमारी majority नहीं है. हां हां बिल्कुल ऐसा ही है. थोड़ा सा model में वापस जाऊंगा. जी. आपने कहा कि ok so so now they've there's a essentially an offline contract that's what what they sign on. They have all the information there so they can go through it, redate. कोई यह नहीं है कि यार terms and conditions कोई weird सी app के अंदर पीछे छुपी पड़ी हैं. नहीं बिल्कुल. Everything is mentioned there and they can go through that as Does well,

the contract mention the price and the requirement

there? I think first page है total price, down payment, installment. कौन सी date को आप installment agree कर रहे हैं pay करने के लिए और क्या So installment it's all in front of It's all in front of them. बिल्कुल. शरीर compliance से आपने कहा कि शरीर

compliance में तीन चीज़ें होती हैं. पहली चीज़ होती है कि late payment fee नहीं होगी. बिल्कुल. So we'll talk about that हां. मगर अगर हो जाता है तो this is what they do. But I mean within रास्त as well, you know, Jazz Cash and Easy Pests offers रास्त as well. So, अचानक and वह हो सकता है. अच्छा, so उसके अंदर आप कहते हैं कि four months उसने किया. Twelve months के उसने terms ली. Four months उसने pay किया. Fourth month के बाद वह कहता है हालत ख़राब हो गया. Job चलेगी. दो महीने वह pay नहीं कर पा रहा या पहले महीने वह default करता है. दूसरे महीने भी आपने कहा वह default कर जाता है. वह कहता है sir अभी नहीं हो सकता. अगले महीने हो जाएगा. अच्छा बंदा अच्छा है. Let's call him कामरान साहब. कामरान साहब अच्छे हैं और वाकई उनके पास नहीं आ रहे पैसे. उनकी job defer हो गई या job चली गई whatever. अब what's really happening? What's the mechanism here? Is is it being is he being hounded by people कि यार you know, क्या हो रहा है? किस तरह से? Good question. So, yeah,

we try our best to get the money, not by hounding but by calling. Right. We have call center जो आपको call करेगा और आपसे कहेगा कि यार आपने promise किया था क्या हुआ? वह कहेगा मेरी job चली गई. उसका दिल ही नहीं कर रहा पैसा देने का या उसका ज़िंदगी में और बहुत सारे मसले हैं. So we would actually have someone, one of our representative go to your, their home and at that point we will actually trigger the guarantor element. हम guarantor सिखेंगे कि आपने इनकी guarantee दी थी. In case कोई reason नहीं है पैसे नहीं देने का. अगर reason होता हम खुद नहीं कहते. अब आप हमें इनसे निकालकर दे दें या खुद दे दें. तो normally our past says that 99.9% cases वहां पर solve हो जाते हैं. यानी उसमें कुछ ना कुछ वह कर देते हैं. So guarantor really works, that means? जी जी बिल्कुल. Guarantor is an essential part of this ecosystem. Right. और ग्रामीण Bank में भी यही था कि guarantor बहुत important है

Right and that means, I mean, so there isn't there like because it's assets, right? जी. So isn't there like a repo situation where you repossess the जी जी बिल्कुल. तो experience यह मेरा last पच्चीस तीस साल का कि अगर एक आदमी

यह stop करने के लिए ताकि वह बेचे ना जो rider का आदमी deliver कर रहा होता है वह box उनसे वापस ले लेता है उस product की. Ok. और वह box आपको तब देता है जब आपकी installments छह installments पूरी हो चुकी होती हैं. ठीक है. वह आकर आपके घर में deliver करता है वह box. और आपका खड़ा और बड़ा हो गया. तो we try our best to stop that from happening.

Right, क्योंकि वह ज़ाहिरी सी बात है कि अगर वह without the box and without all of those things वह एक, उसकी value essentially कम हो जाती है. जी बिल्कुल. Right and so you're losing more

by selling it than you are actually using और उस बेचारे ने एक down payment भी दी हुई है. हां. वह भी minus हो गई उसके अंदर से. हां हां. Right so, so I mean it's, it's not worthwhile anyone to do this. Right. And I think that's probably why NPL is less than point 5% because I think people are realizing कि यह करने का मतलब यह है कि मैं आगे की सारी अपनी option ही खत्म कर दूंगा. हां. और हम जब आदमी जाता है वह उनसे कहता है, in fact हमारी website पर भी लिखा हुआ है यह कि if you buy from us once and everything is fine, you are automatically eligible for the next product. Because whoever comes to us tells us चार चीज़ें चाहिए. हां. And he tells them नहीं एक ही मिल सकती है. एक ही मिल सकती है. मुझे इसमें यह बताएं,

and and and this is coming from talking to a lot of people. Mean this is I feel like the last two years has been a boom for fintech. But fintech के अपने nodes हैं, components हैं. पहला ज़ाहिरा component उसमें यह है कि actual easy and convenient digital money transfer and for that you know we've got like people like let's say EasyPay, Sanjayzcash and सादा pay and नया pay and all those players जो कि wallets and you know उस site पर खेल रहे हैं. उसका और बल्कि इससे I feel like I think it was the easy पैसा podcast or one of those podcast. इन्होंने बहुत ही खूबसूरत तरीके से मुझे five step बताया था of financial inclusion. जी. तो उसमें जो एक एक point आता है जिसमें आप जाते हैं और जाकर आप essentially loans वाला जो element रहेगा जिसमें आप कह रहे और उसमें दहैर कि भी लोगों का जो there is a segment जो कहता है कि यार loans के अंदर आप जो है वो interest की बात कर रहे हैं you know ये सारा तो उस पर there is an entire शरीर compliance element to it. उसका वो renters and so on and so forth तो वो चीज़ है again You can go and check that out but जब जब loans की पूरी एक industry है उसमें Islamic finance is a huge thing and its growing really rapidly in Pakistan worldwide as well in Pakistan. तो जब हम इस finance की बात करते हैं चाहे उसको हम Islamic finance ही कह लें. उसके अंदर credit scoring is at the heart and core of a robust economy that like you mentioned के काफी दफा इस तरह होता है कि हम समझते हैं कि एक इंसान को एक बुरी जगह पर रखा जाएगा और बस उसको incentive भी दिया जाएगा कि यार अपने हालात बेहतर करो और उसके लिए नौकरी करो तो वह कर लेगा. जी. काफी but but actually human behavior doesn't work like that. Human behavior works when you consume and you then feel good and then you actually want to work and That's your incentive to work. Incentive to work, right? And and to be honest, I mean, this is something we've seen in the West. This is also something that I've seen in my own house. मुझे याद है कि मैं, you know, when I got married, so I had, I used to live in this small room जो कि उस वक्त शादी के बाद क्योंकि the the house that I live in is is at this point in time twenty two, thirty two, thirty seven years old. Ok. ठीक है. It's very old, चिपका floor and everything. तो वह कमरा ने renovate करवा लिया. Sir जब मैं उसमें रहना शुरू हुआ ना that's when I was like suddenly I had this drive to work more and I didn't start working more before that. I totally agree with you. You know it's that's when I was like यार ज़िंदगी में तो बड़ा मज़ा आ सकता है. बिल्कुल. And I certainly wanted. So consumption is inherent is an inherent part of growth,

for any human being in in terms of human psychology. No, I think we this goes hand in hand with the fact कि हमें despondency खत्म करने के लिए लोगों में उनको चीज़ें देनी होगी. हां. कि let them enjoy those things, those basic things. Those basic things. Are not even telling them कि यार Mercedes. That's fridge. खाना ठंडा रखो. उनका खाना का loss होता है. बिल्कुल. Cell phones which connects them through the world, bike which. आपको बता दीजिए, वैनो the only countries I was with पहल yesterday जहां पर year over year fridge की consumption has gone down. Number of fridges sold in Pakistan is 25% less this year than what they were last year. हमारी population has gone up and number of fridge has gone up. हमारी heat wave has gone up. हमारी heat wave has gone crazy. हमारी पैसे नहीं लोगों के पास. They don't have their money to buy it. एक तो cell phone ने बड़ा मसला कर दिया है because हां, that's what they में पैसे वहां जा रहे हैं. But आप सोचेंगे यह basic चीज़ें हैं ज़िंदगी के और यह नहीं है इनके पास. अगर आज आप super power, super star, Honda, Honda I don't know but all these Chinese brands जो आम आदमी की गाड़ियां हैं, उनसे पूछेंगे उनकी sale भी down है. हां. उनकी sale भी year over year down है. वह कह रहे हैं कि there is so much गुर्बत here. You know when we were starting this, people around us said कि यार this is not a good time to start in Pakistan. Pakistan में बड़े मसले स्वर्त नहीं जाओ अभी Pakistan. I can say this is the best time to start in Pakistan. But you know what I have been hearing this since I was born. It's never been a good time. Yeah, that's true. Yet I think the best place to do business in this world is Pakistan. Yeah. I remember I was listening to मीज़ान bank के मैं नाम बोल रहा हूं इरफान साहब. एक और podcast थी and he said कि आपको क्या लगता है यह सारे जो लोग यहां रहते हैं, वह क्यों यहां रहते हैं? कितनी मोहब्बत है उनको मुल्स है. हां मोहब्बत है मगर this is the best and the easiest place to make money for every one of them. Yeah. तो हम यह जो कहते हैं कि this is not a good time. यह लोग नहीं deserve करते हैं. अभी इनको ना दें. यह इनकी consumption बढ़ जाएगी. I think this is just a mindset which needs to be changed. Yeah. मैं आपको एक example से इसमें add कर देता हूं कि हम किसी से बात कर रहे थे एक bank से. हमारी एक एक facilitation center is on II Chundryga Road. Ok. Which is the hub of banks in in Pakistan and one of the banker of very close friend of mine and very senior banker said यार मुझे समझ नहीं आता. हम भी ये चीज़ें देते हैं, ये आपसे आकर क्यों ले रहे हैं? अरे सिर्फ एक दिन आ जाओ. Let's take an interview of a client, not someone I know, someone who walks in. He came one afternoon, this is about four months back and there was a person sitting there with और वो देख रहा था कि online order कैसे place करते हैं. वो अपनी बेटी को साथ लाया था कि place वो करेगी, बताएगा ये कि हम क्या afford कर सकते वगैरह वगैरह. तो वो उस दोस्त ने मेरे पुछा उनसे कि भाई आपको पता है ना यहाँ पे ये दो बड़े बड़े towers हैं ये bank की हैं. और enter हो जाएगा तो cashier हाथ नहीं मिलाएगा मुझसे.

Quote unquote exact words face करिए. और यह सच है बात. यह, this is not even like a, it's a mindset.

75,000 वाद भी earn करता अपनी रेखणी से every month. Is not a small guy. हां. He is get to enter a branch. Yeah. तो I mean, how much progress have we done so far? Yeah. It's it's it's very And and I was telling my friend too कि it's the inefficiency of the banking sector. That's why people like us have employment. Yeah. If they were efficient, we we didn't deserve to be Absolutely

absolutely. And so I'll come back to the credit score. Right? I feel like कि, अगर मैं macroeconomics देखूं, sure. I mean, you you have a you have a great business model and I think, it's very much required, particularly in this, troubling time जब people require items, but unfortunately, they can't afford it on a get go. It's not a bull market right now. And so, and to be very honest, एक बात होती है ना कि consumption purely consumption based, जो bike है, जो cell phone है, मेरे हिसाब से these are tools. They are not consumption. Add computer in that too. Yeah, computer absolutely. Laptop है. I use laptop. सस्ती पैंतीस चालीस हज़ार रुपए की laptop. यह मैं और यह बड़ी मुझे याद है कि पिछले दिनों someone messaged me from Hyderabad आपको return कर दूंगा. Now even I know for a fact that kid has like $1,015,000 rupees. उसको basically वह वह चाहिए. वह एक go में नहीं ले पा रहा. बिल्कुल बिल्कुल. अगर वह जाकर उसके पास gigs पड़े में हैं, उसको उसने चीज़ सीख ली हुई है तो it's really just him getting that laptop beginning to work and through that work छह, आठ, दस, बारह महीने के अंदर वह उसी पैसे को घुमा घुमा के घुमा के he has a laptop. बिल्कुल. And then after that it's show. So these are tools. अच्छा अब अगर मैंने इस economy को अगर really मैंने Pakistan की macroeconomics को fix करना है तो जो fundamental चीज़ है वह यह है कि data right like at the end of the day वह यह है कि in in the future if I am able to identify कि मेरा कौन सा बंदा जो है वह अच्छा performer है और कौन सा बंदा जो है वह shaky performer है? कौन सा बंदा poor performer है? तो then I can really run the economy on hyper more right like steroids जैसे कि मैं चला सकता हूं उसको. And unfortunate हमारे साथ यह हुआ कि bank population बड़ी थोड़ी थी. तो वह वैसे ही data बड़ा वह था. उस पर भी उन्होंने जिस तरीके से उसका data gather किया वह बहुत ही primitive है. Like even till date आज तक वह data बेटा तो कुछ भी नहीं है बस वह salary slip क्या आने वाले वक़्त में do you see this as a component of your business as well where just this, just this data देखिए ढाई लाख आपके पास है तो वो data सिर्फ़ आपके लिए नहीं वो बहुत सारे लोगों के लिए बड़ा useful है. बड़ा अच्छा है if he has the right data. And so I club that data with my data and suddenly now I have a lot more insight on that user. I club that data with with let's say EasyPaisas data and JazzCash's data and then there are just so many of these nodes essentially जो कि, जहां पर आकर मैं really, can begin to get a very good picture. So while you're saying I get कि individually this is where you'd go, right? Give them one product, then move on to the next one. After four five products maybe let maybe say कि listen, like, you can now get two products. जी बिल्कुल. And you scale from there. But what happens when you begin to collaborate as as part of and I know कि Pakistan ना collaboration is the, पता नहीं क्या वजह है कि एक एक एक अजीब सी वह समझ जाती है अस्तख्तर उल्लाह. Collaborate करने को ना बोलो भैया मेरा काम, मेरा काम उसका काम उसका काम. But really it's it's it's partnerships are what drive a good economy. No doubt about it. And and and partnerships represent trust in an economic system and that trust अगर वो trust नहीं है इसका मतलब यार आपका फिर पूरा निदामी खराब है. हमने एक बड़ा अच्छा word यहां पर use करना start किया है आजकल synergies.

Absolutely yeah. And and I think हमने यह कुछ Netflix के shows से निकाला यह word वहां बड़ा use होता है यह. तो बिल्कुल हम भी उस पर काम कर रहे हैं. Dave yesterday we were with जोहेब from दस्तगीर for those shopkeepers कि why do we need to validate those shopkeepers when you already done that? Yeah. Let them also now be our client, right? So he's open with it and we are about to roll something out. Same with Rosie. I was with Monas Rahman a few days back and the idea is that there are so many people out there. We know their data. Why don't we offer them these things? Why do they have to start from scratch? The other part and and I want to say well done to State Bank on this is उन्होंने दो credit rating agencies को approval दी है जो अब data collect कर रहे हैं. अब जिस minute हम NBFC वन जाते हैं हम पर यह compulsion है कि हम सारा data इनको report करेंगे. अच्छा उन red rating agencies हैं. Red become your central repositories. And I think nothing beats that because यह सिर्फ मेरे लिए अच्छा नहीं है, यह सबके लिए अच्छा है. Sir यह इससे पहले नहीं था Pakistan में. उसकी life easy हो जाएगी. और यह सारा CNIC tapped है? Everything is going with CNIC. The other thing that we are doing is we are trying to bring a good local bank on our cap. And the idea here is we are not a money intensive model. Don't need too much money because we are making money ourselves. But the idea to bring a bank is that we want these people to graduate from us to them eventually. Right. What I mean by that is हमारी capacity है, हम home loan नहीं दे पाएंगे. Now let's target them, let's make something out for them. A product, maybe maybe a form of a दस हज़ार रुपए credit card. Why not? Why not give everyone a दस हज़ार रुपए credit card? Yeah. Right? So that's the idea. That that's the thought process which sometimes, as my wife says, drives me too much into this. But, I think this guy impact आएगा. And and do you think would that be a conventional bank or would you think a new age bank maybe would would be? I think every conventional bank that I am speaking to now has or wants to be a digital bank as well. Right. Right? Or applied for a digital bank license. So I think सबका mindset change हो रहा है. सबको नज़र आ रहा है कि बहुत bad press मिल रही है खाली TVLs में पैसा डालने से. I come from a banking background so I know कि सारी ज़िंदगी bankएं चली ही उसी के ऊपर है. हां. कि सब पैसा लेने आदमी से और सारे डालकर government को दे दें. हां. और आराम से खाएं और dividend दे दें. Right? I think everyone's looking for the, for the alternative. Everyone's working hard towards it. Good point is that even छोटी banks, like for example, bank that I'm very fond of because my father used to work there, Sunari Bank. Right. They're not our partner, but I see that the thought process is changing from my father's days. Right. Right? Which is great because Yeah. Because eventually,

वह nun बनाने वाले का बच्चा nun नहीं बना रहा होगा. हां हां. And to tap him, you have to go with his dad. Absolutely. You've you've mentioned Grumming Bank a couple of times. For the sake of the audience, if you can sort of explain for them to sort of go and read up on it. क्या है, क्या क्या उसके ऊपर? अच्छा, मेरे पास again जितनी knowledge है, मैं उसी की तरह बोलूंगी. बिल्कुल, absolutely. I I just want you to nudge them towards that and they can just Google उसका is

एक founder था मोहम्मद यूनिस. Right. और मोहम्मद यूनिस का concept यह था कि And this is बांग्लादेश, right? This is बांग्लादेश. जो हमसे कहीं नीचे हुआ करता होगा. हां. उसका concept यह था कि let's start with the thought कि हर आदमी honest है. हां. Let's know the other way कि इसको validate कैसे करें कि honesty या नहीं है? कहता है let's assume everyone's honest and and I've heard him say that. Then let's get two other people who say that he's honest. Right. So now you have three people involved in one sale. Whether you give them money for seats, whether you give women money to buying sewing machines, to generate employment, but it should be very easy. आस पास के दो लोगों करें, पांच लोगों का group बना लें. उन्होंने यह भी start किया था कि पांच लोगों का group बना लें और वह पांचों लोग एक दूसरे को guarantee दें. अब अगर उसमें से एक default करता तो यह चारों responsible हैं. And then everyone gets up one product each, right? So उनका concept यह था कि socially Community cope essentially. Socially let them decide who's a good guy and who's not a good guy. Right. Right. And and that it's a it's a it's a huge entity, I believe, at this point. It's huge. I think he got a Nobel prize as well from what I remember. And and, I mean, lot of other countries. I know one of the banks that we funded through another thing in Mexico was

completely working on government bank model. Very cool. I mean, they they're known world over for what they did. अरे भाई, मुझे यह बताइएगा कि, you know, you've been so, I mean, firm and then loans and then banking and then all sorts of different industries. आपने पढ़ा हुआ क्या?

दुखती हुई राग. Okay, so-so, school. High school and then So school I did St Michael's, Karachi के अंदर, जो ज़माने में अच्छी schoolवाह करती थी. मेरे batch के लोग एक angry का chief है आज. एक बैंगलफलाह का top three के अंदर है. एक दूसरा angry के अंदर vice president है. एक STGA का number two है. COO of STGAs from my batch in St. Michael's. अच्छा. So, so very well placed people. I did my grade nine from there and then my father was working in Habib bank. तो उनका transfer हो गया Singapore. ठीक है. मैंने अपनी high school Singapore से की. ठीक है. I come back and everyone's planning to go abroad. Suddenly, अच्छा इसके दौरान while in Singapore and Pakistan मेरे अब्बा को एक problem था कि वह मुझे अपनी meetings में साथ लजाया करते थे. He was reporting directly to कास्म पारक, the great कास्म पारक. So I've been in meetings when he's been talking and I, parents तो मुझे होता था क्या हो रहा है? And then I started liking it. So while in Singapore दो महीने मैंने internship की अभी bank के अंदर और मुझे नज़र आ गया कि मेरा काम नहीं है. Right. क्योंकि वह इतना लंबा process है dispatch department से जाना वगैरह वगैरह. मगर business में overall interest था. तो Pakistan जब आया करते थे तो मैं यहां से जूते खरीदता था. वहां मैं बेचता था drivers को. वह दो हज़ार हज़ार रुपए की जूते दो हज़ार में, चार हज़ार में. So there was a little bit of business sense or not sense but liking towards business. Right. Right after, school, when I came back, I used to go see these guys at electro. One of them was my uncle and I used to look up to him and he's like, what are you planning to do? I said, I'm planning to join a school here, a university here because I want to do something on the side. He said, why don't you join me? And I said, join you? दस आदमी की company है. What am I going to do? He said, sales start कर देना. So I go there and with me I bring in two other friends of mine. Now these are typical कराची में उसे कहते हैं burger people. ठीक है. And हम हम चले जाते हैं वहां पर. हम क्या करेंगे? हम किस्तों में computers बेचेंगे in 1995. अच्छा. तो पहली बात तो मैं समझनी है कि किस्तों में computers कैसे बेचेंगे? Anyways, so we started that journey there. Part time I started a place called Greenwich. से मैंने तीन साल किया. I am not a graduate. I never finished it because by 2003 we were the largest company in Pakistan. अच्छा. We were in Habib bank. We had given Habib bank 4,000 computers. UBL 3,000 computers. Karachi, लाहौर stock exchange को computerize हमने किया था. So we were like nothing less than CEO level. अब उस time में school में जब जाता था university में तो मुझे लग रहा था कि उसको सिखा सकते हैं, सीख नहीं सकते which is wrong. I don't advise anyone to do that. I think I got lucky. I think people should go with the system, graduate from wherever they can क्योंकि graduate करने में सिर्फ school का फ़ायदा नहीं है, online, but just did not interest, get interested in it. So if you ask me my last degree, so that was my high school. अच्छा, very cool. किस बाज़ार right now? I mean, it's in Karachi? जी. KISS बाज़ार, So, KISS बाज़ार is in Karachi. We do get applications from outside Karachi, some of which we do deliver where we are 100% sure. But primarily, it's in Karachi only. Plan is to go to Hyderabad, Lahore by the end of this year and then maybe Islamabad and close by places to Lahore. See, Hyderabad को point यह है कि Karachi will already there. We understand the system will just go बुज़्दीक में by next year to Islamabad and other places. अच्छा.

Do you think Punjab will be? I mean, सुकाराची I know is a huge middle class marketplace and and and the business case is just phenomenal. But particularly for you, Punjab has not just a population but a muscle as well. You know, consumption has been for for most part, businesses have always eyed up Karachi, because educated middle class, and it's much easier to do a lot of things there. But, recently, especially in the last ten, fifteen years, you know, Punjab की जो एक growing middle class नज़र आना शुरू हुई है and the numbers have been phenomenal. But I also know that culturally, with your experience and everything, you know, Garachi probably through and throughout.

Not just that. We were doing it all over. Right? Just say blue area, man. We were there for ten years Right. Selling laptops and installments. We were there at Hafeez Center, Lahore for years and years. Experience is very different. No doubt about it. Karachi was, like, 97% no problem. लोहौर was maybe 70% no problem and पिंडी was maybe about 60% no problem. As we went further north, maybe हमारी expertise नहीं दी थी. I'd like to think like that. But yeah, I mean, now the ideas we are, we are way better trained than what we were. Awareness बढ़ गई है लोगों में and हमें एक ही चीज़ market करनी है. आप हमें इसलिए pay कर रहे हैं ताकि आपको next product मिल सके. हां. अगर मुझे लगता हम लोगों को यह समझा सके क्योंकि सबको एक से ज़्यादा भी ज़रूरत है.

तो यहां का बंदा जो है उसका गांव आधा पन्ना घंटा घंटा दूर है वो बड़े आराम से गायब हो जाता है and so you need to create a localized model for that particular for those markets. But I also think कि I think the opportunity to really ramp up these areas, क्योंकि यहां पर the population is huge and particularly आप लाहौर और रावलपिंडी इस्लाहाबाद से हट के. What I would really like to hear is what what do you have a plan or are you looking at the markets in let's say गुजरावाला, फ़ैसलाबाद, सियालकोट, you know a lot of these sort of towns and cities ख़ैर है तो बहुत बड़ी in population but have been conventionally ignored. Absolutely.

So like just to go back in my last answer. मैंने आपसे कहा कि हम कराची के बाद हैदराबाद जाएंगे. हम उसके बाद लोहौर जाएंगे. So हैदराबाद का मतलब है कि हम सखर भी जाएंगे. जब हम लोहौर जाएंगे तो हम फिर इस्लामाबाद नहीं जाएंगे. पैसे वापस नहीं करने होंगे. I think just like our experience there, you know in Karachi one of our biggest clientele is पठान who have come to Karachi to work. Yeah. From Peshawar, from Azade Kashmir and sorry Punjabi from Azade Kashmir and different places and they pay even if they go back they pay because they I mean first of all there are three people involved instead of one because of you know being on the ground हमने यह एक चीज़ देखा है कि it's good to have एक test ऊपर के तीन आदमियों. दूसरी एक बात यह भी है कि First of all, just to, you have to know someone everywhere. Right. इस पूरे cycle के अंदर, इस हमारी country में और बाकी country में फ़र्क ही है. कोई जानने वाला कहीं ना कहीं होना ज़रूरी है. इसलिए online mall का मकसद यह था कि कोई जानने वाला नहीं चाहिए.

Makes sense, makes sense. Sounds exciting. अरे भाई we are over the one hour mark and I know कि आपका एक अभी एक flavor रह गया और वह VC वाला flavor था and I know that you have been very active in the startup space. Pakistan के अंदर बड़ी मज़े की startup space हुई भी है और काफी ज़्यादा जो है enthusiasm recent times में आया है but उसी का एक downturn भी आया है because of global recession and commodity super cycle. तो उसकी उसी और में भी I wanted to have that discussion. I hope that you're in इस्लाहाबाद anytime soon you know in the future and we'd love to continue that. एक सवाल मैं generally I ask all of my guests specially जब आप first time आते हैं. Are in your late forties I would assume. जी जी just turned 47 three days back. Three days back. Related happy birthday. Thank you, thank you. And so you have been I mean you've been into Singapore as well. अब आप you know Canada में based हैं. I'm sure you've travelled lot here and there different countries में. Pakistan को आपने जो specially जो Gen X I would say you are right like so generation x ने Pakistan के बहुत सारे phases देखे हैं. ज्याहुलाक वाला भी देखा है, nineties वाला भी देखा है, फिर मुशर्फ and then आप choose कि मुशर्फ के बाद जो democracy चल रही है. Knowing what you know now अगर आप उस past को मत देना ज़र रखते हुए मुझे एक future की एक वह दे सकें, prediction दे सकें. You know like आप यह धारे यह startup भी कर रहे हैं. Pakistan एक नाज़ुक मोड़ से गुज़र तो रहा है. But आप कर रहे और हैं आप कह रहे हैं like you said early on कि it's the bad time to do business in Pakistan but it's always a bad time. How do you see Pakistan twenty eight years from now in 2050 knowing what you know now, seeing what you've seen throughout your life?

Very difficult to predict something like this, but I I I do feel a country like Pakistan, we're not a banana republic. और हमें वह छोड़ भी नहीं सकते. Mhmm. Luckily for some things that we have acquired over time and the population that we have, I I do feel that things will be positive. I do think some work has to be done on population control. I think that is the key because because of unfortunately the uncontrolled population हमारे पास यह negative हो गई है यह resource जो positive होनी चाहिए. दूसरा मुझे मेरा यह belief है I am not political at all. मुझे लगता है जो भी government आती है वह पिछले बारे से बेहतर करने की try करती है. खाती है नहीं खाती है. Honestly I don't give a damn about this. मैं मैं मेरे ख्याल से अगर आप दुनिया की best economies देखेंगे ना हर जगह corruption है. मगर वह आम आदमी को basic करने के बाद corruption करते हैं. करने दे उनको corruption. Till they can take care of you as a, you and I as well. So I do feel whether it's इमरान खान, whether it's शवाद शरीफ, whether it's

बिलावल फुट्टो.

बिलावल फुट्टो. और anyone else, right? जो भी आते हैं, मुझे लगता है they will, वह जो create हो गया है एक notch उससे बेहतरी करने की try करेंगे. हां. So I think we will do better than what we have provided हम खुद भी यह सोचें कि the change starts from us. Right. देखिए बहुत simple है कि हम we were again in that that conference and we were saying कि मेरी flight आ रही थी from Dubai to लाहौर. जब Dubai to लाहौर flight पहुंची अभी land की लोग खड़े हो गए अपनी backs के लिए business class में, economy class में हर जगह. अब जब flight वही Dubai जा रही होती है तो किसी में हिम्मत नहीं होती करने की. वही पाकिस्तानी सब कुछ वही. Why is that? Why why do we take our country for granted? And then we are the biggest critics as well कि इस्ते तो हमारे साथ यह कर दिया, इस्ते यह कर दिया. रहना इधर ही है हमें. This is the best place where we can make money. So I think, to answer in one line, I think we'll be much better off than what we are today. Let's all stay positive. Let's grow towards where we want to be. And already there are sectors which are showing unbelievable growth. Like, for example, not the startup sector overall but I think gaming for example, exports for example. I think with zero input they will probably be the best sectors in coming times. मतलब ऐसा होगा कि जो trophy trophies हैं उनको मिल रही होंगी incoming times आप देखिए बड़े बड़े group इसमें जा रहे For example, I think it's important for me to mention फात्मा गोभी. Absolutely. I, I, I met the gentleman for the first time yesterday and I was pleasantly surprised. I was like outstanding that a guy with all this background is going with these teeny mini startups. Yeah. Right? I think other others are following them as well. So I think I think we are on the right path. थोड़े से up downs हर जगह है. किसी Canadian से पूछे उसका Canada के मालूम क्या ख्याल है? चार गालियां देगा हुआ Trudeau को. हां. Right? But it's the best place in the world to live as well. Yeah. Right? So I

think इंशाना things will be better. चलिए I hope and I'm excited to see that future which is better than Arun and I totally agree with you. I think evolution जो है ना वह एक एक natural part of process है जिसमें वह democratic evolution भी होती है. It's always going to be better than the last one. And I science

also tell you, right? जैसे हमने पहले महीने के अंदर ढाई सौ लोगों को सामान दिया. ठीक है. Last month हमने पंद्रह सौ को दिया. इस month मेरे ख्याल से हम शायद दो हज़ार को दे रहे हैं. Now that means people want that product. इसका मतलब कि उनके पास at least वह पहली payment तो है ना कि वह लेना चाह रहे हैं. तो isn't this a good sign? Because these people if we were not there I think वो इन चीज़ों में नहीं होते वो होते हैं. बैठे होते हैं month on month अच्छा ठीक है. जब वो बैठे होते तो वो क्या करते हैं? वो वो हसित करते हैं. वो बुरा feel करते हैं. वो कुछ ऐसा सोचते कि हमारे पास तो नहीं आएगा. हमारे बच्चों को जाने के लिए, let's do the sacrifice and let's do something wrong. Yeah, yeah. Right? So I think the fact that there are more startups coming in, startups like अभी for example, giving an advance payment, startups like दस्तगीर for example. I mean I think all this is in the right direction and then the best part about Pakistan now is that पाकिस्तानी local VCs are getting more active than they ever have. They gone to conferences like हम जो बात कर रहे थे unconference of अली फाद again a great guy जिसका हर जगह नाम आना चाहिए. उसने Pakistan को map में लाया है. जहानाला ने Pakistan को map में लाया उन conferences के अंदर जो पाकिस्तानी VCs आ रहे हैं, अब उनको गोरे fund कर रहे हैं. There is a VC called I to I very famous. कुल सुम्हें मिज़बाद. Two women. I mean, I am thoroughly impressed at the at the fact that they're able to get funding from places जो Pakistan को देखेगी नहीं and I've seen it with my eye. Right? I think आतिफ has done a great job. I think फात्मा गोभी is doing a great job. ज़ेन has done a great job. So all these people are the new ambassadors of our country because they go out and कश्कोल वह फैलाते हैं, वह पैसे लाते हैं और वह यहां dollars भी invest कर रहे हैं ताकि यह startups आगे जा सके. हां हां. So I think चीज़ें अच्छी हैं. Let's let's stay positive. आप इस तरह का show करते रहें. लोगों को सच बताते रहें कि fact यह है, बातें यह हो रही but fact यह है. And I think we will be on the right path. इंशालाह, इंशालाह. अरे भाई thank you so much for coming in, for taking the time out particularly. Thank you again for having me. It's an honor. Sir, thank you. The pleasure is all mine and I hope to see किस बाज़ार growing as it's growing. I loved having this conversation with you. आपका vision बड़ा मज़े का है. I had a lot of BNPL conversations. मैंने उसका आखिर में इस तरह नहीं बोला. So this is actually coming straight from my heart के I appreciate it. Thank you. You know, I love what you guys are doing. Would love to see. We also want to show by by numbers what we are doing. अभी numbers बहुत कम है. We have 7,000 people that have taken from us. The day we get to 700,000, we'll be a happier bunch for sure. Inshallah, Inshallah, 100%.

Thank you so much for coming in. Thank you. And for all of you guys, thank you so much for watching. Grab your episode पसंद आई. मैं दोस्तियां ऐसा है ज़रूर share करिएगा. Comment section में बताएं. What do think about the model? What do think about buy now pay later? What do you think about you know credits and and and the शरीरा compliance of it? Love to hear your thoughts कि इस तमाम चीज़ के बारे में if you have any agreements disagreements let us know in the comment section below.