Why Pakistan has less than 1% of merchants digitized

शामला ख़ाबतीना विश्वास welcome back to another episode of Thor Dying Things. आज हमारे साथ मौजूद है एक बहुत ही ख़ास मेहमान जिनका मुझे बहुत reasonably पता लगा कि you know what these guys are doing and I thought I'd bring him in. But लाने का मकसद क्या था particularly क्योंकि मेरा एक ख़ास interest रहा है recently मैं हमेशा shops में जाता होता था. Backstory यह है कि जब मैं बहुत छोटा था तकरीबन पांचवीं जमात में था तो मेरे वाले साहब जो थे वह एक banker थे. And so मैं shops पर जाता होता था जाकर मुझे होता था कि मैं कहीं credit card दूं और मैं अपनी बोलूंगा. बड़ी exciting time होता था उस time के ऊपर. But उसके वहां उस time से मैंने realize करना शुक्रियां this is back in 02/1945 कि Pakistan में machines ही नहीं है. Machines हैं भी तो लोग कहते थे कि यार नहीं machine काम नहीं कर रही cash कर दें. ऐसा ऐसा ऐसा हमने सुना digital payment सब कुछ आता जा रहा था. लेकिन even आज तक यह मसला है कि Pakistan में अगर आपने cashless चलना है तो वह जो infrastructure है वह machines का, वह you know payment transfer का वह exist ही नहीं करता. And जाहिर है कि वह एक बड़ी confusing सी वह थी कि यह machines किनकी होती हैं, कौन लोग लेकर आते हैं, banks लाते हैं, कौन लाते हैं? And so I found out that these guys are now championing that machine infrastructure. Thought I'd love to have this conversation. हमारे साथ आज मौजूद है फवाद अब्दुल कादर साहब. He is the country head of Paymob Pakistan and previously has been the head of digital financial services at NEFT as well as the head of products, branch less banking at Bank Alfalah. Sir, thank you so much for being by the show. It's great to be here.

I I really want to,

wanted to meet you. चलिए, I'm I'm glad, this happened. Firstly, I'm gonna start this conversation. First of all, trying to understand थोड़ा सा कि where were you born? Early life कहां पर गुज़ारी and what was life like growing up for you?

So, I was born in it was... We we belong to a family that was like a middle class family. And we, grew up like any any other kid in कराची who who who's going to school and playing in the evenings.

यह कराची वाला time था या यह थोड़ा सा cup वाला time शुरू हो चुका हुआ था?

When I was actually born, this was around 1976, it was a great city. We were there like but when I actually graduated out of high school, That was the time कि हां हालात सुनाव होना शुरू है. किराची was not that peaceful anymore. अच्छा, schooling आपने कहां से की थी? Happy Home School. अच्छा. It was, it was sort of a family school. अच्छा तो बड़े cousins ने भी वहीं से पढ़ा, बड़े बहन भाइयों ने भी वहीं से पढ़ा. अच्छा. तो वो it was like everybody was there.

Was it something जो कि proximity में था इस वजह से या was it like one of those legacy schools?

Legacy good schools, right? So the school was founded somewhere in '48 somewhere. अच्छा. Yeah, it's it's it was one of the good schools at that time, right? Because we did not have brands of school at that time. So this was this was good school क्योंकि वहां उस ज़माने में parents यह देखते थे teachers कहां अच्छे हैं? पहले कौन पढ़ा हुआ है वहां से? उसका career कैसा grow किया है? तो अब हम जैसे मैं बता रहा हूं कि since I was a youngest in my family तो वह सारे बड़े cousins और वह वहां से पढ़कर निकले थे and they did really well for themselves. Right. So it was sort of a

No हां. No brainer, yeah. Makes sense. So where to go for university?

I I did my, university from an institute that was at that time one of one of the good, institutions in Karachi. Its theme was Petroman. Mhmm. It was affiliated with Shah Abdul Tif University.

So, did my computer science graduation from there. Oh, it's a four years program? Four years program. Interesting. And, I mean, my understanding is you're from the banking industry. Yes. With an education in computer science. One of the early birds जब computer science का boom था, how did that come about? I mean you graduate in 2001 I am assuming? 2001. Why didn't you pursue immediately straight up कि यार मैं I don't know उस time पर क्या होता होगा opportunities? Oracle वगैरह की consulting jobs या

क्या but what start graduation. Software houses were at Boomer that time. Pakistan had started to have software houses. My brother was was in computer science as well. He did his graduation from fast, did his MBA from IPS so you can understand the pressure that I am Yeah, so pathway बड़ा clear, so I get you know he would have guided you, he would have told you क्या scene है? Yeah, so so he was into IT. I I went there as, okay, I have to do graduation. Did not make a choice there. Right. Then out of that, I actually wanted to teach. अच्छा. And around four years I did teach. What sort of teaching? Everything. So I did tuitions, I taught in a school, I was teaching graduation level again in IT. So that was something I really enjoyed doing.

Interesting. Why don't you pursue that then? मतलब masters करते, professor वन जाते I guess.

दो दो चीज़ें. एक तो यह है कि of course the expectation from family is always कि you are into the corporate world. And that actually especially after marriage, वह काफी एक strong feeling आने लगती है आपको. You want to grow in your career, you want to do something, you want to make your family proud, parents and your wife. So I think it was it was more about coming into the corporate world, wearing a suit and tie and representing

the corporate world. The image of a successful man. Image of a successful man, yes. Interesting. So how do you switch? I mean, IT की teaching, is is a fairly, it's very difficult I would say कि उधर से बंदा अपना पाथ में निकालेगा chair मैंने It was much more paying as well. The teaching At the gig. Yeah. So you had to take a pay cut Yes. To make a switch. Yes. How, प्रभित मुझे यह बताएं, how did that feel at the time? Well, because it's again that's a very difficult choice to make. A lot of people are stuck in those choices. काफ़ी दवा लोग होते हैं वह ऐसी industry में होते हैं जिसमें उनको मज़ा नहीं आ रहा होता, growth नहीं हो रही होती. But they're stuck forever because उनको यह fear होता है कि यार if I restart क्योंकि आप जब switch करेंगे तो you're gonna be the bottom of the food chain, right? Like, you had four years of experience behind you and so आप जो भी कर रहे थे उसमें एक आपका एक strength थी, एक background था, एक learning थी. And suddenly if you had to switch, that had to be really starting from scratch.

Yes, it was. I I, so the first job that I got was a walk and interview. There were 500 people, five were selected. Right? So, the, and I'll I'll come to that later. But just to answer you, like I said, when you make mistakes early, you you sort of become fearless after that because you've already made mistakes. And by this time, I had, decided that whatever I'll do in my life, even if it goes wrong, I can always correct it or I I can always make a decision right. And later actually I, I I read quote from, मोहम्मद अली जिन्ना that he I don't make right and wrong decisions. I may I make decisions and then I make them right. Right? So so the thing is I I think I that was the philosophy. Mhmm. I I always thought that it was more important and the family who stood by me for for the time I was making mistakes. I wanted to do something and-and make them happy. Yeah.

Tell me about your first job, and the interview that you got. Work and job की हुई थी. Yeah, so,

this was after I got married, right? So I I wanted to avoid going into the corporate world. I would say I would but I would continue to teach and everything and and and my wife would mark, job, in the newspaper and tell me that these jobs are there, out there for interviews. And I had to go for the interview because she would set them up. This was a this was a walk in interview. So I walked in. There were, 500 people cramping outside the office building, and I thought क्या करूं मैं?

And what what company was this? This was Cybernet.

अच्छा. They were hiring for customer care executives for their offices that they were expanding in Karachi at that time. It was more consumer based internet at that time which I was just I think this was 2004.

And right when the broadband expansion

was happening? We weren't into broadband at that time. It was more of a dial up. अच्छा, यह still dial up है. Still dial up है. Right. ठीक है? और हम जो है वह dial up जो है वह service देते थे and it was

a great learning experience there. But how do you get it? 500 people must be from all over the place. What do you think was any you at the time that got you that job? Two

things which I I I always thought I was good at. Communication and convincing people. Right. Right? So that's that has been, the reason I wanted to do teaching. I can I can always talk to people very comfortably and explain things? Some of my friends call me a professor for that reason.

So, yeah. Interesting. How long were you there for at Cybernet? I was I was there for four months. अच्छा? Yeah. And then what was the next switch?

Bank alphabet. अच्छा. Okay. So, so I got an offer from the bank. This time Did apply there? No, I hadn't. So I had a walk in customer who walked in. I serviced him and he went away. Next day he calls me and tells me, would you like to work for a bank? And I told him why not? So he just, gave me his email, to send him my resume. I did that. Got an interview, got the offer. So What was the job? A call center. Right. As a call center, as a phone banking officer. And this was this was actually then, at by this time I had realized that, what importance my father brings to me. Mhmm. So I went to him and asked him. So there's an interesting story why I took this up because I might have stayed at Cybernet, but, my father told me that he wanted to be a banker when he came to Pakistan. And, it was, like, for him, it was a proud moment for his son to work for a bank. Right? So so that's why I just grabbed on it. Interesting.

And so you were in Bangalphala for quite a while?

No, I wasn't. I was there for, a year. Okay. And then, I moved to ABN AMRO,

and this was in Dubai. अच्छा. Yeah. And again, what position?

Again, I got there as a call center executive. Later on, I became the supervisor there but that's,

in ABN AMRO. And वहां पर कितना रहता है? I was there for two years. अच्छा. Was that the first time going out of Pakistan? Or rather

No, when you say going out of Pakistan Not to a set but like to actually settle somewhere. To work. To work, yeah. Yeah. This is the first time I was travelling outside. With family? Work. Now I went there alone. ठीक है. The intent was to bring my family in. Only when once you hit Dubai, actually so Dubai is a different life altogether. So once you once you go there, you realize the costs of living in Dubai. Yeah. And then of course my father, so this was, this was a difficult time for us because when I went to Dubai, my mother just passed away. Oh. My father was with my brother in England and I had gone there. Then my father, when he returned to Pakistan, I I thought it's best. One, because I'm not able to move my family there. Second, it's best to remain with the family. Then I came back. Right, so it was purely for the family? Yes.

And वापस आ गया, तो वहां पर आपके पास job छोड़ दी और बस वापस आ गया. मैं देखता हूं कि वापस आ गया तो. Exactly. So I was jobless for two months. अच्छा. And what was the next dent?

MCB.

ठीक है. You really roamed around the entire sector.

So I got into MCB and actually MCB was the point of change in my career. So MCB, I got into MCB. I knew that they had openings there. I applied there, got into an interview, got there as a supervisor for the call center.

So that's that's how I started MCB. And you you mentioned क्या switch आया था वहां पर? तो switch कैसे आया?

Because okay. So, I visit the call center, grew there, became the training manager. Then in 2008, MCB की union, so you know MCB got privatized, in in the nineties, 9290 three somewhere जब 2,008 में उनकी union ने कुछ demands रखें और उसकी वजह से काफी turmoil हुआ कि जहां पर MCB को दो तीन दिन तक MCB was like Shutdown. Shutdown. अच्छा. Because the union was very active. Right. And at that point in time I was actually asked if we could because we weren't even able to respond to calls. अच्छा. At the call center and of course for an organization it's a concerning thing because your customers are completely out of touch. Yeah. So, and this was mainly focused in the head office vicinity which was Karachi at that time. So, I was asked if we could take these calls from Lahore somehow. And I said, why not? So, we did, Doctor site for MCB in four days. What's that? Doctor? Disaster recovery. Okay. So we we actually diverted all the calls in four days from Karachi to Lahore. Of course, then the things things did settle down, but then they asked me if you could set up a call center there. I did that for them for within three months. So that was the turning point where I also realized the the capability that I had other than communication and convincing people was to manage projects and manage programs.

And so what did you then how do you expand on that? Because again generally मैं देखूं तो call center and the pathway that you were on उसकी growth है but एक certain level तक है, right? And so at some point that again that image of a successful man वह कहीं ना कहीं आकर peak करनी थी and and and फिर question आना था कि यार, okay, what what do I do next? Yeah. So where do you think you hit that?

So, okay. So I I created that call center, set it up. We started as a nine to five call center, and then it became a twenty four hours call center. And then, MCB was doing while I was at the call center, MCB was doing MCB mobile, which was probably the first data based mobile application in Pakistan. It was browser based. Right. But it was not an app but it was the mobile payments. The Internet banking is in Pakistan because because in the same time, EasyPayse was launched, right, as as as the branchless banking play. But it was more of a USSD based transactional play. Mhmm. This was more of Internet based, data based, transactional play. So in that, of course, someone else was leading that, but I was partnering on the services side, being the, manager call center. The services side, was supporting there. So when MCB decided to do their branchless banking, they asked me if I would like to lead that. Mhmm. And that was when I got introduced to digital payments or digital financial services.

Interesting.

Did you switch a role, or was the role the same but you were just No, I did switch. So I became the head of product for MCB Lite Same. Which was MCB Lite was the brand of the branchless banking wallet and that that was what we did at MCB. It was it was actually a branchless banking play but again it was a digital wallet at that time because the branchless banking play in those days were mostly agent based banking. Right. Like EasyPesa, JazzCash came in, UPL Omni. But we were at that time the leaders in the digital wallet space with a Visa debit card attached to it. That's how interesting. So it was it was You didn't need a a bank account.

You just needed a you could have opened a wallet separately? Yes. Interesting.

Yeah. We did this in 2011,

by the way. How do why don't a lot of people know about this?

Okay. It was not marketed, right? So what most of the banks have done after that, of course it was it was again a browser based play. It was, we didn't have the flashy apps at that time, right? Right. But it was a very functional play. And, we probably missed a trick by not marketing it at that time because, and and I I later on, I started to believe that there is a right time for everything. Mhmm. Right? When you do things even before their time, they sort of fade away. Yeah. Right? So that's that's what so MCB Lite, I still, when I meet a few people and they are using MCB light because we had sold it to the market in a different way like for instance this is your e commerce wallet. Mhmm. Right? Because a lot of people were afraid putting in their debit card onto the social platforms. अब तो बहुत awareness आ गई है. उस ज़माने में नहीं थी. ठीक है? तो वो लोग e commerce website पर अपना card डालते हुए डरते थे कि इसमें तो मेरा सारा पैसा पड़ा है debit card के अंदर. हां. तो there was like a security play कि you can move your funds from your main account into MCB Lite and use this as an online card. Right right right. Right? You can use it for digital payments through the mobile app itself. Right? So all that was and it it I was amazed to see even without any marketing, a lot of people adopted it and used it. Mhmm.

So the the following decade for most part, think up into 2021, you were in the in the sort of digital payments and branch based banking space. Quickly अगर आप मुझे उसका बताएं कि what was that sort of, what did that decade look like? क्या क्या करते रहें and क्या हुआ? Sure. So,

in MCB when I did MCB Lite and we did the wallet and we did the card, We launched it. I always wanted to do along with that agency banking because I always believed that एक product is as good as, the distribution that that product gets. Right? So a product has to be distributed well. And and this if the product is for the masses, it has to be distributed, like, sold on retail stores. So we I I what I wanted to do was, at that time was to sell bank accounts at retail stores. Interesting. Right? Couldn't do that. But then Alphila at that time was actually, gearing up for its branchless banking play. And they were at that time, Varid was there. Right? So they they they had partnered with Varid as their agent network. Mhmm. So wanted to do agency banking because in these three, four years, I had developed a liking for this space. Mhmm. The digital payment space. The excitement of converting cash into digital was was great. Mhmm. And then agency banking was something in the branch's banking space that was important for me as an individual also to get an experience on because I did not have that with MCB. So, went on to, Alphala, joined Alphala. We launched a brand. So I was the product head at Alphala, for Brussels Banking, and we were partnering with Warit at that time, and we launched a brand called Mobile Pesa. Right. Which took did well for a year. It started off. We we captured around four to 5% of the market, but then Warit got sold. Right? Jazz absorbed it, and and then it merged into JazzCash, and we were left without an agent network. Mhmm. Then we had to restrategize. And at that point in time, we got, into, the wallet play again, which which I had already done in MCB. And the exciting part of that was that at that time, we also got into, an arrangement with EOBI pension, digitization. And, then that wallet program actually, we did a lot of other wallet programs, but, Alphala at that time gained this, customer base, a pension disbursement, platform which we did for UBI.

Right. I think वह एक आपका core set of customers आपको मिल गया हुआ था जिसमें आपको पता है कि उसमें तो आ नहीं आ रहा है. Yes. And so you sort of that's your base and you grow from there. Yes. Is that the one that eventually sort of converted into Alpha

for Bangalphila or was that a separate product altogether? Alpha was was the digital app. ठीक है. Or digital platform. Right. Which was customer facing. This was more of the wallet. The engine. The card. Yeah. Not the engine because because Alpha is a transactional play. Okay. This was a deposit play. Right? Right. So you this was Alpha works on the Broussell's Banking platform Right. As well as their core banking customers. Right? Right. So if if if Alphila has a core banking customer, they can also use Alpha. Their Broussell's Banking customers can also use Alpha. So Alpha is the front end app. Interesting. Which connects to both of these customer bases.

From Alpha la, you switched to एक तो आपका वह था savings, national savings वाला experience and NEFT वाला experience. Tell me a little bit about that because that's, that's slightly different from, hardcore banking and sort of consumer facing उस तरह से. So why did that happen and and and what was that basically?

Okay. So, look, let me firstly differentiate between financial inclusion and digital payments because this was my shift from financial inclusion to digital payments.

ठीक है. Right?

We had done a lot of wallets. We had done a lot of work on the financial inclusion part. And by this time, since the state bank came out with the branches banking regulation in 2008, a lot of players were working in that space. So when I left Alphala in 2017, we were already in that space for nine years. Right. Right? The idea was to actually explore something new where we where we go into digitization, of payments. Mhmm. Right? At that time, Zafur Masud, who's the current CEO for Bank of Punjab, was The person who who survived the Yeah. PAA crash. PAA crash. Yes. He was he was the directory journal at National Savings at that time. Right. He was DG there. And, there was there was a program that started, with the help of Karan Das. Mhmm. That to digitize national saving, customers. Right? And there was a complete strategy that had to be drawn. So I was pulled in by, करण दास and and their consulting firm to actually lead the digitization

project for national savings. You mentioned earlier that you, कि आप उसको differentiate करेंगे. How would you differentiate? What is financial inclusion? अगर मैं कहता हूं कि, you I have no idea what you're saying. So define the term financial inclusion and then define what digitization of sort of So

in Pakistan, so we we we actually use three different terms, right? Banked, underbanked and unbanked. ठीक है. Right? Banked are customers that have a banking account or even a wallet now. Right. Right? Which is under the branch's banking space. Then there are underbanked people who have access to financial services but like for instance through my father. Right. Or my brother. Like you got a supplementary card from your father. You are an under banked customer at that time. Right. Right? And unbanked is who do not have any access to financial services, formal financial services. Right. Pakistan at that time realized and I think it was it was very progressive with the regulator to come out with a regulation to actually help, create financial inclusion because documentation of economy was the key thing that had to happen. And for that, people need to channelize their payments, funds through a banking channel. Right? So at that point in time, financial inclusion was important and is still important. Converting people who do not have a bank account into a bank customer. That's financial inclusion. ठीक है. Once they're financially included, right? You can have a checkbook. You can go to the branch and withdraw cash. Mhmm. That does not mean you're digitized.

Right.

Digitized is when you're able to use those funds digitally whenever you want it. Right? That is more about access to your finances.

So digitization comes on top of financial inclusion. Financial inclusion is the first step. Yeah. If I were to just ask a a follow-up question connected to this, I don't know what the data is, but you mentioned, you know, banked, underbanked, and what was the third? Unbanked. Unbanked. What are the current numbers of for for for Pakistanis?

Well, there is there is no accurate number because it's it's not a published number. But still, we are around 25% banked population.

So it's still a large population which remains unbanked. And that's, in my understanding, is one of the lowest in South Asia. Yes. And also one of the lowest in the world. It is. In some cases, even African countries are actually more progressive Yeah. With with M Pesa and stuff like that happening. They are much more progressive than us. So why do you think यह हो नहीं सका? Because what you're telling me, I mean, मुझे मोटा मोटा macro पर तो बड़ा पता था but the way that you're telling me कि दो हज़ार आठ में progressive regulation भी आ गई है. Banks भी कह रहे हैं कि अच्छा जी we wanna go branch less and and again it makes sense also because the cost of opening a bank account with a branch is just exponentially higher, right? Because You go to a branch and it's horrifying. You know, women, young students or, जो आपकी blue collar workers हैं, उनको banking करना बड़ा मुश्किल हो जाता है. But then you have branch less banking that, seemingly would have simplified a lot of that and could have made that easier. Then you got these sort of digital wallets. Even आज हम सुनते हैं कि, you know, there's so many players, आधा Pay, नया Pay, and EasyPay and JazzCash. But that that financial inclusion just hasn't happened on the level that we have seen a lot of other developing markets. आप यह भी नहीं कह सकते कि education का problem है. आप यह भी नहीं कह सकते कि economy शायद इतनी advanced नहीं है, इतनी, वह नहीं है, evolved नहीं है. Because there are other examples within the region who have been able to do it. Why do you think Pakistan has failed in that aspect?

So one thing I would like to add, we have very high teledensity and, even higher usage of Internet. So it's not it's not that it's not technology at all. Let me ask you a question. Can I? Yeah yeah, go for it. When did you open your first account?

I opened my first account when I was 19. Why did you open it? To be very honest, if my father wasn't a banker, I wouldn't have opened it. I wouldn't even have known about banker. But still, why did you open it? I opened it at the time because I had, I'd just gone to Karachi for university, and money had to be moved.

That's your answer. Yeah. There was a need. Right? You open an account only when you needed it. Right. Everybody does that. Account is not a hobby, right? Nobody goes, चलो आज अच्छा देना है, चलो account खुलवाते हैं. Nobody does that, right? Account लोग खुलवाते हैं because या तो उनकी उसकी salary आनी होती है या अगर वो businessman हैं उनको payments करनी होती हैं, उनको loan चाहिए होता है उसके लिए. There there are different reasons people open accounts for. We haven't created those use cases frankly. This is this was one of the reasons for me to to decide that payments could be that use case. Mhmm. Right? For people to actually get into accounts. I still believe this is not a use case enough. Right? But this is one. Loans is another. Right? Payments are a means to loans. Right? Because while you're doing payments, your, data gets documented.

Like basically, credit scoring वाला है. Yeah

yeah yeah. You can get access to loans then. Right? So I think this works hand in hand. And until unless you create that reason for people to open accounts, you would always find, the same people opening wallets as well. They would have bank accounts. They would open wallets. Yeah. Because they like the way, the wallets operate, the experience and everything. But is it to penetrate down into the market, or is it to create a better life experience?

These are two different things. Mhmm. And so that's where I would like to figure out, k, the switch, to PayMop. How did that happen? What was the what was the thought process there? Because you've been in these sort of legacy businesses. These are big. Again, I'll come back to the the man in the suit, right? The the success की पाकिस्तान का थप्पा of success. बड़ा हैदारा, छा suit, बेहतरीन title. Going from there to seemingly a startup Yeah. And being the first employee there, if I if if I understand this correctly, right? That's at at at an age where you're really just अब आपका वह वाला time है क्या? आपने कहा कि यार मैं अब executive position में जाऊं, अच्छा सा मेरा कमरा हो, साथ एक बाहर secretary हो और सुकून से मेरी ज़िंदगी गुज़रे. Yeah. That's not an easy decision. Yeah. You know, कहां से आई वह opportunity and why did you choose it?

Well, the opportunity came well while I was working at NEFT. Mhmm. So at NEFT we had actually set up a payment gateway. I was there, after my consulting assignment for around three and a half years. NEFT was, again, a great opportunity because it was greenfield, one. It it was a huge, infrastructure within the banking system. Right. So NEFT does check clearing for the entire number of banks in Pakistan. Right. Right? And it's connected to all the banks, but nobody knows about NEFT because it's always at the back end. And what was the मतलब what were you guys doing there? Digitizing the the check clearing system? No. The it does check clearing for the last twenty five years. Right. Right? Which which is a manual process of picking up checks from the branches, scanning them, sending sending those checks to the issuer bank. They approving it, the money movement to the beneficiary bank through State Bank, all of that. So it it manages all that. It's a it's a very operationally extensive, activity. Right. Right? When I got there, so NIFT was actually wanting to do something in the digital space. Right. Right? Having that muscle and having that connect connectivity, with with the banks, It wanted to actually utilize that for its advantage. So we, I I got this offer from, NEFT while I was at, doing consulting, but I'd wanted to complete that consulting assignment. Thankfully, they waited for me to, for around five months. And then when I joined there, we did a complete strategy on, account based payments. This was the first time that instead of card, you can use your account to pay digitally. अच्छा. Right? So you can go onto a website, select NEFT ePay as a checkout. Instead of putting your card, you can put your account number in CNIC, get an OTP, enter that, and your payment is deducted. अच्छा. Yeah. So this this was, something creating absolutely new for me. Right? That that was something that I did. And then, while I was at NEFT, PMob approached me. They wanted que, be they wanted that they were coming to Pakistan, and we want to lead,

we want you to lead. नहीं so, again जब आपको offer आई है, आपने ज़ाहिर अपना एक वह due diligence की होगी कि यार यह कौन है, क्या कर रहे हैं? किसी भी दारे में आप जब भी गए हैं तो एक system set था. There is value that you can add absolutely and but there is a system and उस system को आप study करके उसको add on कर सकते हैं. Here it's very different. You're supposed to set up the system while adding all the value that you're you're going to add.

Did that worry you at all? Not at all. So when I did my, sort of research on PayMob, I realized two things. Mhmm. One thing was which was, like I said, one thing that I realized very early when we when we did MCB Light, that if you don't distribute a product well, nobody's gonna know about it. Mhmm. Doesn't matter how good your product is. Mhmm. Right? The second thing is how agile are you in order to adapt and change yourself according to the needs of the market? These are the two things that I've I discovered about Paymov based on the journey that they have had. Mhmm. So it was it was probably that, confidence in in what Paymob has done,

that didn't really scare me. Tell me about Paymob. How did it start? I believe it's an Egyptian

company? Yes, it is. It's it's an interesting story. So, Islam Shaki, who's our, mother and CEO, He, Alan, and Mustafa Menisi. Three were in Cairo University, and, they wanted to actually go into an ecommerce business. That's how this started. And, they approached a bank for a payment gateway. Bank ने उनको एक book पकड़ा दी integration guide के तौर पर और काफ़ी ज़्यादा पैसे भी मांगे as a license cost. तो इन्होंने यह decide किया कि असल problem तो यहां है. There are so many e commerce players but still we are struggling to get a payment gateway. So why not do this? That's how they started off as fresh college graduates who wanted to do something new. Right? So they, set up their, company. They they established a platform. They called it PayMob, and the rest is history. And when did they start? 2015? 2015.

Yes. Were were exclusively

in Egypt Yes. For the first few years? Yes. Pakistan is the first country that they expanded to. अच्छा. So, they they were firstly mostly an online payment gateway. Mhmm. And like I said, very quickly got the understanding that until and unless we resolve all the issues into payments, we are not going to be where we want to be, which is which is the largest payment provider in the MENA region. Right? So then they started to diversify into, point of sale, transactions, other channels, creating those opportunities for merchants to digitize themselves. So overall, they have gone through that journey in the last, what, seven years. Mhmm. We started off in Pakistan as the second deployment, this year. And very recently, last month, we have, launched an UAE as well. Interesting.

Tell me about the the products. So for an average consumer, जो कि sun रहा है, उसके लिए क्या क्या ऐसी like what are the touch points that he he maybe be able to see you? What do you offer really?

Okay, sure. So we we I would like to for for the purpose of understanding divide it into two markets, online and offline. ठीक है. Offline market is wherever you talk about digitizing a brick and mortar experience, right? Mhmm. So it it could be a a large retail store, it could be a mom and pop shop, it could be anything where where payment needs to be digitized. And it's in a proximity setting. दूसरा जो आपके पास element है वह है online. Online के again अंदर बहुत सारे elements हैं. आपके पास अब social commerce है, आपके पास e commerce websites है, आपके पास apps है through which you can shop. So all of those, so the product suite that we have digitizes payments for everyone. Any business who needs to collect or make payments, we we provide them a solution.

ठीक है, let's talk about the online one first. Yeah. What's the solution? I mean, what do you provide? Because banks भी theoretically that solution already exists on some level. Yeah. Albeit बड़ा, मैं example दूंगा, नाम नहीं लूंगा brand का. But, you know, we had an e commerce setup and we reached out to two players. One exclusively online और online से ज़्यादा जो post modern नए वाले हैं N1 bank और वह exactly जो आपने बोला ना वह exactly ही problem था कि उन्होंने कहा जी ठीक है, कर लें आप. मैंने कहा जबरदस्त, कैसे करें? उसके बाद कोई reply नहीं आया और और फिर हमने market से पुछा तो market ने बोला कि यार वह कोई जानने वाला अगर होगा ना उधर तो उसको बोलना तो वहां पर कोई रुके कोई बंदा होगा तो शायद वह आकर तुम्हारा setup कर दे and and obviously like I'm just like somewhere down the line you begin to feel sort of gaslighted and feel guilty as well कि यार I'm so stupid. I don't know about this. I should be like a metro computer science का graduate हूं. मुझे पता होना चाहिए किसकी API किसने काम करते हैं. Then I thought about it and I was like यार, no like if I am a businessman and it was my wife's sort of e commerce planner business and I was like she is a businessman, businesswoman. She doesn't need to have the technical understanding of कि यार यह पूरा वह है and दुनिया modern दुनिया के अंदर she doesn't require to have like a technology की team जो कि बैठकर पूरा का पूरा integrate करके दे so that 3% of her sales can start getting digitized. Know at the start it needs to be very very fluent ताकि आप venturies में figure out करो. आपका काम जाना चाहिए कि यार what are some of the interesting sales that you can offer? What are the business decisions that you can make to ensure कि digital payments मेरी बढ़े? But again, यह सारी energy चली गई है सिर्फ़ integration में. तो this is fairly stupid and then the one I went to a legacy bank and legacy bank I am not even gonna start like that. So so so when some you know PMOP came in तो वह मेरे लिए बड़ा एक interesting था कि अच्छा this is a player जो कि exclusively focus इस पर उनका यह focus नहीं है कि यार wallet में तुम्हारे कितने पैसे हैं? तुम savings account खोल दो ताकि मैं bank को मैं government को पैसे दे दूं and that's where the money is that they're not really interested in this. इनका काम ही होगा. Yeah. So tell me about the online. What's the, how does that work? And for an average consumer, let's say I have a, I have a e commerce website. मेरे लिए pay mom किस तरह काम करेगा?

Sure. So the first thing I would like to define is we are an omnichannel platform. Okay. What does that mean? That means that whatever challenge you have so you it is absolutely possible that you're a hybrid as well. Mhmm. Right? So you have an online presence, and you have brick and mortar as well. Right. So if we onboard you, we enable you on all your channels. Right. Right? Firstly हम online की बात कर लेते हैं. Online में of course depending on like you said, the need of your customer, you should be able to provide your services. Right? Whether it is plugins through which the merchant integrates. Now plugins is is is a simple integration. Right? It's it's a plug and play. And today in today's world people don't make custom websites. They go on Shopify and create a e commerce store. WordPress हो जाएगा, Machado हो जाएगा. ठीक है? तो आपको उनको simply उस जो भी जिस platform पर वह हैं उसका plugin provide करना है. They embedded and they start accepting payments. Right? अगर कोई mobile app है तो आपने उसको एक SDK देनी है which they can embed into their mobile. अगर कोई redirect method पर website पर चाहता है अपनी उसी custom build website है तो आपने उसको एक redirect method पर या अपने hosted checkout के so the the integration is as per the customer's requirement. Right? Integration has to be very simple because this is what most of the e businesses shy away from. Right? The reason for that is it's so cumbersome to integrate that

they they say, okay, fine, cash on delivery अच्छा है. हां, ऐसे किया साह नहीं. मैं आपसे एक सवाल करता हूं. Imagine I am a 19 year old university student जिसने nifty sound थोड़ा सा तो मैंने जाकर जो है जी I don't know मेरे वाले साहब की कपड़े की दुकान थी. मैंने COVID के time के ऊपर उसको online Facebook पर बेचना शुरू कर दिया. फिर मैंने एक website बना ली और अब मेरा एक अच्छा turnaround आ रहा है. महीने की चार पांच लाख रुपए की sale हो जाती है. उसके ऊपर मैं लाख, सवा लाख रुपया profit भी कमा लेता हूं. Do you think I will be able to, in a fluent way, integrate PayMap? Absolutely.

So we allow our users to create their profile online. Mhmm. They go on our website. They don't have to do anything. Create their user ID, password, and they get into our dashboard. On that dashboard, they have everything. They have the means to integrate, with our Sandbox environment. They have all the knowledge that they need. We have documents there which they can read if they want. It's once only they have integrate already integrated with us. They need to contact us to take them live.

ठीक है. Integration से क्या मुरात है? So for example

Download a plugin if it is on a Shopify. हां. Download and plugin, install that plugin, test it out with the test credentials that are available to them on that dashboard. ठीक है. Once they have tested, just let us know that they wanna want to go live. And all of this is happening,

without any, अभी gatekeeping कोई भी नहीं हुई भी. वह ग़ुस्सा है, उसने account बना लिया वन गया? वन गया. उसने integrations वगैरह करनी हो गई. उसको अभी कोई वह नहीं देना पड़ा कि employment letter लाकर तो अब्बू का birth certificate लाकर तो वह कुछ भी नहीं हुआ. That's for going live, yes. अब जाकर तो मैंने basic सारा का सारा कर लिया. अब मैंने अच्छा और my understanding is that you guys are somewhere in the middle. जो cash या जो पैसा आ रहा है वह किसी और account या wallet से customer का रहा या debit card से customer का आ रहा है और वह जा किसी और account wallet जिसमें जो कि जो कि businessman है उसने एक provide कर दिया कि यार जब आपके पास payment आ जाएगी तो आपने इस account में readout करनी है. ऐसा ही है? ऐसा ही है. अच्छा, उसके बाद मैंने आपको reach out किया. मैंने कहा जी मुझे live जाना है. Yeah. तो what's the step for that? So, now this when this customer approaches us generally,

there is a lead generated. ठीक है. Based on the type of customer, if it is like an SME, our team will contact him. We have a SME sales team, we have a enterprise sales team, we have a post sales. So we have a structure which actually embodies the organization's will to digitize, right? So अगर वह SME है तो SME की team उसको contact करेगी, उसको hand hold करेगी, ठीक है? उससे documents collect करेगी. ठीक है. और उसको live ले जाएगी. और इसमें जो documentation है, is there any regulation requirement? So the regulator has given guidelines. ठीक है. अभी more recently, State Bank has given some certain guidelines on digital merchant onboarding. ठीक है. So what that also helps is a complete digital onboarding experience for the merchant. So documents सारी online ही upload हो जाएंगी? Online ही upload हो जाती हैं. Depending on the merchant's transactional needs, उसकी different limits हो सकती हैं, different requirements हो सकती हैं. So yes, there is a guideline जो कि banks और जो भी players हैं हम follow करते हैं for onboarding these merchants. But like I said, it's a simple graduation process. और documents किस तरह की हैं? Documents depends on your business. If you are a private limited company it would be different. मैं मैं छोटा साहब. Sole

proprietor है जी. Private limited वाले level पर जो खेल रहा है ना उसके पास वह team ही पूरी है जो क्यों कर लेगी. वह मुश्किल वाला भी कर लेगी क्यों करना हो. मेरे यह सबसे बड़ा जो interest है वह है छोटा Sole proprietor. Sole proprietor, you know, young kid. Not just young kid like young business जो कि और जो कि Pakistan का बहुत बड़ा GDP का हिस्सा है. Yeah. You know, जिसको कभी किसी ने support नहीं किया. Yeah. Like I said मैंने persona build कर दिया of a young 19 year old kid जिसका business चल रहा है. पांच पांच लाख रुपए की उसकी sales आ रही हैं. उसने अब live जाना है. उसको क्या documents देनी पड़ेंगी? His CNIC and accounts certificate.

That's it? That's it. अच्छा, interesting. Because he fall falls under a sole proprietorship category, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a, he's he's not a registered business. We do want customers to register for NTN as well, right, because that is important to file taxes, and that is probably a social responsibility that we have to to guide people towards, the tax regime. But it's not a hard look at this point? No, it's not. Because otherwise you will not be able to digitize. Makes sense.

So यह आपका हो गया online वाला और online में मेरा एक last सवाल आपसे यह होगा. How do you although I mean you're the you're the middleman, there's no liability theoretically. But on on on what level is there a fraud detection mechanism? क्योंकि यह एक बड़ा real problem है और होगा आने वाले वक़्त में, right? कि Pakistan के साथ मसला यह है कि ease of doing business is difficult and the minute you begin to talk about कियार, it should be very plug and play. The the easier it is, the more fraud. The fraud always goes up. And it's not just I think in Pakistan, think a lot of the newer markets that are developed वह हमेशा fraud होता है. Even Amazon had an incredible amount of frauds when they started digitizing. Mhmm. और फिर उसके ऊपर ज़ाहिर है mechanisms बाद, you know, you put into place कि कोई बंदा जो है वह basically fake वह यह उसने register कर लिया, वह आया उसने आकर digital marketing के through products को market करके पैसा move करवा दिया. As soon as the money is moved, business closed, done, you know, we've moved on. So how do you ensure that fraud is, mitigated, in this?

Okay. So there there are two kinds of frauds. One is a merchant fraud and one is a customer fraud. Right? Right. You're right now talking about a merchant fraud. Right. देखिए, जब हम एक merchant से documents लेते हैं, then we do a due diligence. We understand what sort of business it is in. उसकी website को serve करते हैं. जो उसकी अगर for instance if it is social commerce तो यह देखते हैं कितने अरसे से है. We have a team at the back end. Taking it live, assess if it is a legit business. Right. Even after we take him live, we keep monitoring the transactions that he is doing, The type of transactions. उसने first को उसने यह बताया कि मेरा business है Pakistan के अंदर और उसकी transactions US से आ रही हैं. US card से आ रही है. Because Pakistan के अंदर customer frauds काम इसलिए हो गए हैं इसलिए regulator ने एक अच्छा काम यह किया था कि इन्होंने एक होता है three d security, three-dimensional security उसको mandate कर दिया था. US के अंदर भी बहुत सारे cards two-dimensional security पर चल रहे हैं. मतलब it's it's 2DS.

Right.

और उसकी वजह से वहां पर OTP नहीं आता, transaction through हो जाती है तो अगर आपके पास card number और उसके पीछे CVV है, you must have watched all those, dramas. अगर आपने, आपके पास है तो you can just charge the card, right, if you have those credentials. So monitoring is a continuous process. You keep on monitoring those merchants even after you've onboarded them through a secured process where you've assessed them as a business. You also assess the type of transactions happening on this, the level of customer complaints coming on this so that you can deplug any merchant Mhmm. If they even go the initial screening.

Right. Again, just to confirm, you're not the one you're the one moving the money. You're not the one providing the money or the I'm assuming Mastercard and visas, and those people are basically or the banks are managing that. Yep. So we have a very strategic partner partnership with Bank Alphera right now. ठीक है.

They are our acquiring partners. The money movement happens through them. ठीक है. As as whatever we do, we we have an arrangement with them to move those funds. Of course पीछे master visa card जो schemes हैं वह हैं. तो

बिल्कुल Who verifying and approving the transactions? The customer? नहीं मतलब for example customer आपका एक front page आ गया website के ऊपर मैं गया मैंने कहा जी मैंने topy ख़रीदनी है, ख़रीद ली. Click कर दिया add to cart, checkout, checkout पर गया pay मैं आपका interface आ गया. बिल्कुल ऐसे. वहां पर मैंने choice अपनी choice of

channel पर जाकर मैंने कहा कि अच्छा मुझे let's say debit card से करना है या मुझे mobile app के through transfer करना है जो भी. मैंने wallet से pay करना है, मैंने account से pay करना है because omnichannel का एक और फ़ायदा यह है कि you have multiple instruments attached to it. Right? So you can pay through any one of them. So once you click on any of these and you enter your credentials, your credentials are taken to your bank. ठीक है. Right? और वह verify करता है run real time पर? वह bank सिर्फ़ verify नहीं करता वह आपसे भी verify करता है. In most cases you receive an OTP which you enter. Yeah. And then the transaction gets authorized. So it's at the end it's the customer giving an authorization for the transaction. Right,

ठीक है so जो जो दरमियान की requirement है of a player जो कि बैठकर उसके account में देख रहा पैसे हैं कि नहीं उसके account में वह सारा का सारा mitigate हो जाता है and it's basically. Completely digital right? उसके account में पैसे हैं नहीं हैं यह भी directly check होता है. हां. Account

block तो नहीं है किसी किस्म का कोई constraint तो नहीं है account के ऊपर. Dormant नहीं हुआ हुआ. Everything is checked within fifteen seconds, twenty seconds

and you get a response. And how long does it take for the for the vendor to be able to receive that payment from you guys?

Okay. So it takes around for card payments, it takes around forty eight hours. For,

the, account based, wallet based other payments, it's the next day. अच्छा. Yeah. So, सारा जो भी पिछले दिन की transaction है, वह सारी सारी final new year work है, then transfer हो जाएंगे उसको. Yes. Is that the industry? No. Because my understanding is कि this was और और मैं इसमें एक मारूफ़ ride hailing company का mention करना चाहूंगा जिस पर सुनने में यह आ रहा था कि उनके credits के पैसे जो हैं वह अगर आपने कभी travel किया हो तो जो आपके यह captains होते हैं यह कहते हैं जी हमें credit पर नहीं चाहिए, credit card पर नहीं चाहिए और फिर when I really got into it to the bottom of it I found out कि उनको in some cases minimum fifteen days, maximum thirty thirty days लगते थे to transfer all of that cash. And obviously for someone जिसका सुबह शाम का धंधा चल रहा है, उसके लिए it's close to impossible कि वह उसको survive कर सके particularly in such high inflation. And so I was fairly surprised कि in the digital digital world पंद्रह पंद्रह दिन lead time, it makes no sense to me. Yeah. Do you think that's something जो कि industry में already हो रहा था? Is that something new that you guys are doing? Well, we have tried to squeeze these times. The industry was already trying to do this for a while.

It has commercial aspects to it. Right? So if you're keeping somebody's money, you're earning float on it. Right. The bank is earning float on it. And then you can actually, subsidize the other costs. So it's it's it's a it's a commercial model, what you go with. Right? Mhmm. We have tried to keep the best for both both the things. Giving him commercials which is acceptable yet not keeping his money with us. Right. Our our objective is not to hold the money. Our objective is to actually get the money to the merchant as early as possible, and therefore the instant transfers.

What are the... I mean, so all of this is great. How do you make any money?

Okay. So it's a very simple model. The business that we provide the services to, we charge them. We charge them, per transaction, charge and that's it.

अच्छा. And that per transaction charge essentially is being divided into multiple plans? मतलब Yes. जिसने verify किया या Mastercard है, bank है जिसने वह किया, वह हर किसी के पास एक percentage आ रही होती है? बिल्कुल ऐसे ही है. So this is this is normally known in the market as the merchant discount rate. Okay. Right? So let's say,

you do a transaction of thousand rupees, and these are hypothetical numbers, all of them. And your you the merchant has received, merchant discount rate of 2%, let's say. Right? 20 rupees is the charge that the merchant would pay. Right? That means the the amount would be discounted to $9.90 rupees, and that that's what the merchant would receive. I'm just ignoring the taxes right now in this Right. Right, In the entire calculation. This these 20 rupees will be divided with the payment provider like us. The acquiring bank, the scheme, which is Master of Visa card or PayPal or, UnionPay or whatever scheme it is, and at the back end with the issuer bank of that customer as well. So everybody gets some revenue Right. From these 20 rupees.

Okay. So there's an incentive for every single stakeholder within the sort of ecosystem. Absolutely. We able to make money. Otherwise it won't work. अगर मैं कहता हूं कि easy पैसा से for example हो रहा है तो in that case यह कोई mobile wallet से हो रहा है. तो in that case it's basically you guys and the mobile wallet and the receiving bank. Yes, generally yes. Scheme नहीं होगी obviously तो वह Of course. Minus हो जाएगा. ठीक है, ok. So I'll switch now to the physical aspect of things, because I think that's really the harder nut to crack for for you guys, for anyone in Pakistan because nobody has been able to do it historically. पहले तो मुझे बताइएगा what is that service? What do you provide to your average, you know, again मैं उसमें persona build करूंगा off a Kariana store. A a good Kariana store, active one but a Kariana store nonetheless because they're not very active in terms of their digitization or their barcoding. जैसे अंस्नाहाबाद में D Watson से आप expect कर सकते हो कि वह हर चीज़ करके बैठा हुआ होगा. But अगर आप for example हर sector का सब sector के एक पीछे छोटी market होती है जहां पर you know आपका बाहर को वह नहीं लगाया हुआ है. उसकी total numbers जो है वह एक किताब में हो रही हैं. Yeah. So so what's the utility for him to come to you?

Okay. A couple of things here. Firstly, let's understand the market, right? On on the offline side. So market के अंदर आज जो payment method है prevalent वह card है. ठीक है. ठीक है? जो कि point of sale machines जो कि आपने counters पर लगी हुई देखी होंगी जिसके अंदर आप card dip करते हैं और फिर pin डालते हैं वह ज़्यादातर वहां पर charge होता है. A machine has a cost attached to it, right? Which is approximately let's say $200, right? So whenever anybody installs machine at a retailer, they firstly decide that if it is going to make profit from him from the transactions that are that are done on this machine, तो सबसे पहले यह assess करता है कि यह कितनी transactions करेगा? उसमें कितना turnover होगा? और उसमें से मैं अपने दो सौ dollar कब तक recover करूंगा? Right? The thing is that has limited the investment into this market. अच्छा, इसके पीछे थोड़ी सी story है. अगर मैं twenty twenty से पहले जाऊं तो twenty twenty से पहले इसकी pricing regulated नहीं थी. So the acquirer acquiring business which is which is the post deployment business was mainly a loss making business for the banks also, right? Because they were issuing plastics, issue cards issue करते थे, accounts issue करते थे. Acquiring was more of a investment for them. It wasn't a revenue line. There was revenue but it wasn't they it was not profitable. तो उसकी वजह से हुआ यह कि Pakistan में आज तक we have 96,000 of sale machines which are deployed over 34,000, approximately right? क्योंकि एक machine एक merchant के ऊपर multiple machines भी लगी भी होती हैं. तो अगर मैं percentage की बात करूँ, do you have a number? कि actually total market size क्या है? उसके कितने percent का We don't have a total market size. अगर हम अगर अपने SME segment को देख लें तो you will find different numbers right? So you will find 5,000,000 SME's हैं Pakistan में कोई कहेगा सात million SME's हैं. मतलब but by all estimates they are more than 5,000,000.

Okay. So if you take 5,000,000 as a as a base case and 10% of that is what? पांच लाख. पांच लाख. 1% as a पचास हज़ार. Less than 2%. Actually, less than 1% merchants actually are wow, that's mind numbing. ठीक है. अच्छा,

इसके against में एक और number बता देता हूं. ठीक है. Iran. Right. Right? 80,000,000 population. Guess how many pots?

This is a, this is a by the way a regime जो कि sanction में पड़ी पड़ी है, disconnected from the world.

But I I can't एक wild guess. कैसा बोला? 8,000,000 बोला आपने? मैंने बोला 80,000,000 की population. Population है? Payer 22, 220,000,000 population

as per our last census. ठीक है, 80,000,000 के हिसाब से मैं कहूंगा, I don't know, 1,000,000.

8,000,000 POS machines. Right? So 10 for every 10 people There is a boss machine. A boss machine. Yeah. Wow. Right? Yes.

And they've been able to build that ecosystem to really ground up within internally because उनका तो banking is also disconnected from the world as well. My understanding is correct. So then why? Why why has this been the case? I mean, you, आपने twenty twenty से पहले बोला कि वह regulation नहीं थी. Regulation ने आगे क्या किया? Regulation ने आगे सबसे पहले तो यह किया है कि जो

division था उसको acquirer के favor में change किया और मैंने जो बताया ना MDR का जो division है उसको acquirer के favor में change किया. ठीक है. उन्होंने issuers का interchange को lock कर दिया कि इससे ज़्यादा नहीं हो सकता. ठीक है. और फिर उन्होंने कहा acquirer का MDR इससे कम नहीं हो सकता. Because price wars also kill your profit margin. Right right. तो that has created that space. And since 2020, you you might have seen a lot of new banks coming into the acquiring business because this space was created. Yeah. Lot things. Very smart move. Yeah. By the regulators. Of course, they were they were industry people who got involved in order to get that done. And it actually has made an impact where market has become more

Responsible. Responsive to the acquiring business. और इससे पहले जब एक for example मुझे अगर चाहिए होती थी machine तो मैं उस machine के दो सौ dollar pay करता था या मुझे मुफ्त की मिलती थी?

Different models हैं market के अंदर. There are majority जो है वह free में ही देती है. They don't charge but वह मिलना बड़ा मुश्किल है. अच्छा, why? Because like I said there is an ROI. Right. Everybody is investing जो मैंने एक शुरू में बात की थी a limited amount of money on the digital. They would want to maximize profits of it. Right. Right? So what they would do is always have the machine at the high end retailers because it's going to have a more lucrative return. So जो low end retailer है जिसकी आप बात कर रहे हैं उस तक POS machine पहुंचती नहीं है. तो it's not his it is not a choice that he is making not to put a POS machine. He cannot get one. Right? Because he does not clock that much traffic for the POS machine to get profitable for for for the acquirer providing it to him. Mhmm. How does everyone solve that problem? Well, we are bringing in a technology for SoftBus. What that does is... So you must have seen recently in Pakistan the the tap on the POS transaction. Right? So you you have an NFC chip on each of your plastics, and you go and you just tap it on the POS because it's a tap machine. It enabled, and the transaction goes through. Right. Right? If it is a transaction over 3,000, then you have to enter your, PIN as well. For a mobile phone to be converted into a POS, it just needs an NFC enablement. Right? So if your phone is an NFC smartphone, we have an app, a technology to convert it into a POS device. Oh, interesting. Right? So you can accept card payments

through TAP on your phone without having to invest into a POS machine. POS machine. सही है. So barrier to entry was a POS machine, and that's how you solve it. What can you tell me a little bit about? मतलब मुझे नहीं पता कि Pakistan में mobile phones जो आ रहे हैं वह NFC enabled होते हैं नहीं होते? किस तरह के होते हैं? आप लोगों ने शायद research की हुई हो. Yeah. So most of the new phones are NFC enabled.

What we have done are for instance जो नए mobiles आ रहे हैं इसमें 80% NFC enabled है. अच्छा. Any phone above 10,000 to 15,000 rupees

अच्छा is NFC And so that, oh interesting. So इस case में क्या होगा कि either the shopkeeper already has a smartphone or you give him a list of कि यार, you know, you make that investment. This is not कि आप एक machine पर invest करें. This is आपने ज़िंदगी में phone तो लेना ही है. So you make that investment but make sure कि वह इस boundary इस range में आए, यह वाले phones हों and you can use our product essentially. Absolutely and and and. And so the buy in then goes to the customer rather than coming to you and hitting your bottom line. And the customer can even take it on installments. Right? So now there are entities, who are basically giving phones on installments. Yeah. So it's easier to acquire a phone. Right? It's not that difficult anymore in the market. And in that case it doesn't matter कि मैं महीने की पचास रुपए की sale करता या पांच लाख रुपए की sale करता हूं. आपको तो hit पड़ ही नहीं रही. As long as I have a legitimate business. Yeah. जो कि वह चल रहा है तो अगर मुझे initially demand create करनी

Absolutely.

Do you think this can begin to reach to peripheries as well beyond KLI? Absolutely.

So another advantage of a soft pause is that there is no human interaction required. Just like I enable someone on online channel, this becomes an online channel. Mhmm. Because so it's a it's a it's a interesting mix of online and offline, right? Because a customer can actually download an app through Google Play or any online store and configure it, apply on it. Once we approve, we can start accepting payments. So even my sales rep doesn't need to go there in tier two, tier three cities Mhmm. To enable this merchant.

Yeah. Are you guys live right now? Yes, we are. What's the growth been like?

So we it's it has been a really good response. We have, and we we're live since July. It's like our four month, fourth month. Our POS are going live this month. ठीक है. SoftPos is coming in February. The project is going on as we speak. Right. And still we have been able to give, our online experience to hundreds of merchants already.

Right. जो online वाला है वह basically जो merchant है वह convert करेगा. उसके पास जो भी कारण वह लगा हुआ है वह आप पर आ जाएगा और आप उसको three sixty degree provide करेंगे. Absolutely. Right? जो आपकी POS machines हैं, what's the buy in to that? Does the customer have to pay or the merchant have to pay or? No. We don't believe in that because that creates a barrier, barrier to entry. Right? Right. So the ideology is that

you enable the merchant to completely digitize his collection and payments experience and let me just explain that to you. So one of the reason, one other reason कि merchant cash prefer करता है is because उसको payments आगे भी करनी होती हैं. Right? So if you walk into a store right now, ठीक है? And it's the start of day और आप कहते हो digitally उसे payment ले लो और वह आपका card swipe करता है और card swipe करके payment accept कर लेता है. He does not add anything to his till. उसका supplier vendor walks in. आपने देखा होगा दुकानों पर एक normal process है. आते हैं कि जी या inventory दी थी इसके पैसे लेने आए. ठीक है? वह कहता है till में पैसे नहीं है. ठीक है? तो for him it's very important to create a balance between what he's, accepted as cash in his till because he needs to make payments इसलिए कि वह जाकर bank से निकालकर नहीं लेकर आएगा. He will not leave his shop. Right? तो what we have done is for all of our merchants, we have enabled them to also pay out. So any balance that they have accepted, अगर मैंने एक card swipe किया है एक लाख रुपए के लिए, वह balance मेरे पास है. लेकिन वह अभी मेरे account में transfer नहीं हुआ. मेरे account में transfer नहीं हुआ लेकिन मैं accept कर चुका हूं. Paymop enables them to pay that to anybody that they want as long as he has an approved balance in his,

account with us. So आपका जिस तरह let's say t plus one day पर चल रहा है या forty eight hours पर चल रहा है तो आपने two days This is too correct. POS में we do it next day. अच्छा, you do it next day? Yeah. So वह next day के जो twenty four hours का working day का, I'm assuming weekends पर तो नहीं होगा. But वह working day का जो transfer हो रहा है तो you give one day credit essentially to that merchant.

Not really because look, we owe this customer. Right. If I if I if I would give him credit, that means I don't owe this customer. He is a merchant. He has done a transaction. We have given him an authorization of 100,000 rupees. सही है. Now we owe this customer 100,000 rupees but we are not giving it to him because we have to collect and then give it to him.

अच्छा interesting.

ठीक है अगर उसने वो एक लाख रुपए उस बंदे को दे दिए उस बंदे को pay off कर दिए merchant का merchant को उसके पैसे मिल गए. Merchant बस जिसको इतने नहीं है हमें उसने payment किया उसको instant instant मिल गए और जब वो पैसे आऐंगे तो मैं अपनी कटी वापस पूरी कर लूंगा.

Interesting, interesting. And the merchant is not, जो जो उसने payment किया supplier को doesn't have to be registered to you is not part of a may does not have to be a pay mock customer or do they have to be a pay mock customer as well? जिसको payment हुई है? मैं कहता हूं for example उसके पास तो पचास product पड़ी हुई ना इसके use बहुत सारे हैं उसका एक supplier आया कि यार वह ding dong bubble gum के पैसे चाहिए मुझे और वह कहता है कि जी मेरे पास तो अभी tail में नहीं है. But मैंने यह digital payments ली हुई हैं बहुत सारी. तो वह कहता है जी ठीक है मेरा यह easy पैसा account है इसके अंदर जो है तुम पैसे transfer कर दो.

That's it. तो वह उस पर transfer हो जाएगा कोई. उस पर transfer हो जाएगा. He does not need to register with us. He is not our customer.

Our customer is the merchant. Oh interesting. We are enabling him to collect and we are enabling him to pay. ठीक है. And what's, I mean, so you mentioned a financial model, right? There must be a minimum buy in for that as well in terms of कि यार ठीक है, तुम्हें machine के pay नहीं करने पड़ रहे. Machine के pay करने पड़ रहे हैं उसको? नहीं करने पड़ रहे हैं. You get the machine for free? Yeah. What's the minimum revenue required per month maybe or annual? जिसकी basis के ऊपर आप वह machine free दे रहे हैं? Well कोई तो barrier to entry होगा.

As far as soft cost is concerned. वह तो I understand. वह तो उसका कोई barrier to होगा. Machine basically what we try to do is कि अगर हम छह महीने में

अपनी cost recover कर सकते हैं तो give the machine. ठीक है. तो वह ज़्यादा एक arbitrary number है वह dollar rate के ऊपर up and down तो उसके हिसाब से आप एक analysis करेंगे और उसके base cover दे देंगे ठीक है and जो machine in itself है वह क्योंकि यार बड़ा excruciating process रहा है growing up 99% of the time अगर machine नहीं है. Mhmm. जो 1% time है उसमें machine है उसके 99% of the time signal नहीं आता और अगर signal आता भी है तो उसको use करना आता है या नहीं आता वह एक it's just just a thing, right? इस machine का user interface कैसा है पहला तो? दूसरा यह कि यह बस debit card and credit card कर रही है यह और चीज़ें भी कर रही है like how what's tell me about the machine. Sure. So it's a smart machine.

Okay. Just like your Android smartphone. ठीक है. So for a user it's just like using his phone. Right? He's go he just needs to tap on the screen to go to the options and do a transaction. Right? And, our sales reps train the merchant to do that, and it's a very simple process. I today, I believe with all these social channels, like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, the customer is very, very savvy as far as using an Android device or smart phone is concerned. Right? So for them to actually learn how to collect payments, it's a very simple process. To get that machine, again, it's a very simple process. He just needs to apply for it. Right? And then we analyze if we have to give him a pause or a soft pause. Right. Right? Because for us, it's not about whether we are going to enable him or not. It's about what are we going to enable him with. Right? That makes commercial sense to us, and that resolves his problem as well. Right. He can accept cards. He can accept through accounts. He can accept through wallets. He can accept from any channel. We we're even connecting right now buy now, pay laters. Buy now pay later is recently evolved in Pakistan where you you have, these organizations or institutions which actually have a customer base that they lend to. You can buy things from the merchants, and they you can pay them back in installments. Yeah. Right? We even on our POS device and our, even on our ecommerce, we are connecting these buy now, pay later. So that becomes an instrument of payment as well. Right. So you can pay through the loan that you have acquired from these buy now pay later to pay to the merchant. Makes sense.

जो आपकी machines हैं, उसमें is it, I mean, all of these different players, do they have to come in with a debit card or a credit card? जिसके through ये transactions होंगी या जिस तरह you know I was in The UAE recently और वहां पर उनकी machine के ऊपर multiple options होती हैं. They can choose an app and then उसके payment वाले के through either card के through कर रहे हैं या उसी में QR खुल जाएगा या उसी में सारी चीज़ें हो जाएंगी. और यह machine क्या कर सकती है potentially यह बड़ा simplify कर सकती है कि you know there is an app for every particular payment I don't know service.

आपने बस वह app खोली आपने कहा जी अच्छा JazzCash करना यह logic खोलो और उसके ऊपर आपने कर दिया. Why open a different app? So it's it's the same app. It's integrated at the back end with everyone. Right? Right. So with EasyPesa, Jazz, Cash, everyone, you integrate at the back end, and you enable the payment there and then. So so the device, the app remains the same. ठीक है. You just choose a payment method through which you pay.

I see. You don't have to switch up. उसी उसी में ही buy now pay later भी integrated होगा. उसी में सारा integrated होगा. Doesn't matter if I have a credit card or a debit card or a plastic. Or an account or a wallet. हां, if I have a digital account जिसके ऊपर जो है वह I mean let's say again EasyPass account है, not everybody has a debit card with it but I have an account, I have money in that account. So there is a mechanism through which I can pay directly and you know verify करके मुझसे transfer कर लेगा. Tell me about, I don't know if that makes sense in this case but again जो QR का मैंने mention किया, वह एक mechanism था कि how do you simplify the user experience and and and you know transfer money one way or the other. उसमें एक one QR या इस तरह कुछ आ रहा था state bank की तरफ़ से जिसमें वह था कि यार एक uniform एक तो रास्त आया था जिसने कहा था कि यार मैं पूरी की पूरी rails जो हैं वह unify कर and digitize digital payments will be very very fluent and very very large. Similarly, one QR का हम sun रहे थे कि वह एक QR आ जाएगा and so in a way plastic then becomes irrelevant because, you know, you don't have to like have 10 different credit cards, 10 different, वह बस you have just one QR and eventually digital services will begin to integrate all of that like वह machine है या वह paper काग़ज़ है उस पर QR है, आपने QR किया उसने backend पर सारा manage किया in terms of कि अच्छा जी आपकी service कौन सी है? उसकी service कौन सी है? उसकी transaction किस तरह से exchange हो रही है? और अगर हम India में देखें तो UPI sort of did that as well where they had that centralized universal एक एक front था जिस जो कि रास्त कहता कि यार एक phone number होगा. आपका काम है कि आपने पीछे से उसमें किस वाली service को फेंकना है उसमें पैसे? Absolutely. और that's your front and उस phone number के आगे एक potentially QR1 QR हो सकता है जो कि आपको represent कर है, right? Theoretically that it makes POS machines irrelevant for a simple mind. How do you see that?

Okay, Look. QR is another, payment method that we have. Right? It can be on paper. Okay. It can be on a POS machine. Right. Right? To scan and pay. Now, firstly regarding the rails. So yes, there were no rails for unification of QR and that was one of one of the problems that, adoption of QR faced in Pakistan. Right. क्योंकि जब हमने, अच्छा थोड़ा सा एक history में चला जाता हूं. मेरे भाई ने n nineties मुझे एक credit card बनाकर जो supplementary card, city bank के स्वाद cards आते थे. Right. बड़े खूबसूरत होते बड़े exciting time होता था. I was young teenager तो बड़ा अच्छा लगता था card carry करना. Then these were visa cards. Market में ज़्यादातर जो point of sale machines थी वो star chart की थी. Which were Mastercard acceptance. Visa की भी थी Citibank की लेकिन पहले आप जब POS machine के लिए दुकान में enter होते थे तो आपको पूछना पड़ता था कि Visa accepted है या Mastercard accepted है? And therefore, you will always carry cash with you as a backup. And if you're carrying cash with you as a backup, you might as well pay through cash, Right? That means you as a buyer, I don't have the confidence that will I be be able to pay it through the digital. QR के अंदर भी यही हुआ जो जिस तरह से आपने कहा multiple QRs लगे हुए हैं. मुझे नहीं पता कि मेरी bank की app उस QR को accept करेगी या नहीं करेगी. And therefore the reluctance. तो एक तो यह चीज़ थी which State Bank of Pakistan decided to get into in the RAST rails and unify and and they issued a unified, specification for QRs in Pakistan. Right? It's it's still in the implementation process, but that is that will resolve one of the problems of QR. The second one is, of course, the customer behavior. Mhmm. Right? The customer behavior today is more about, that they want and look, QR market and POS market is two separate markets. Right. Right? The customer behavior on POS is I let the merchant do all the work. Right? So I'll I'll be dining, and I'll give my card away. And it would get swiped everything, and they will just come back to you with for the PIN. Right? Similarly on retail. Mhmm. In QR, you have to do all the work. Mhmm. You have to log in to your app. It's it's a simple experience, but it's about be building that behavior. Right. Right? A lot of people tried to incentivize that change as well, but it hasn't taken that change so far. The unification can do one thing, but you would also need to incentivize that behavior again after unification in order to build that buyer's confidence and and change his behavior to a QR payment. Right. तीसरी जो QR के साथ limitation है या मैं limitation तो नहीं कहूंगा लेकिन जो जो difference है card acceptance में और QR के अंदर वह यह है कि QR के अंदर you'll mostly be paying through your account, right? Cards में you have credits. Right. Right? So you have credit cards as well. So it's it's remains to be seen how you bring in credit into QR as well.

Right. So the way that you'd see it is it'll be two separate markets. QR की हमेशा separate, regular card की हमेशा separate. Again, in in a way card is premium. अगर हम इसमें original भी जाएं तो cards really started from dinner club and it was really targeted towards a particular class and even India के अंदर अगर हम देखें China में देखें तो QR is more for the masses. The the easier buy in कि यार ठीक है वह costs cut हो जाती हैं तो वह हो जाता है but eventually you know people really graduate to cards

because it's much more universal and Absolutely. So if QR is targeted to the same POS market, it will never succeed. QR has to be introduced in markets which

do not have POS measures. वो ठेले पर जा रहा है, वाले को जा रहा है, वो मोची को जा रहा है कि यार you know just give me money directly and it makes sense. मुझे यह बताइएगा कि अभी आप लोगों का जो यह decision था to come to Pakistan, obviously मैं अगर चलें, let's start with this. What was the thought behind it? What was, what did you see in Pakistan? That made you sort of bullish on कि यार something like this could work? Like I mentioned अभी मैं बड़ा सैनिकली I I threw a lot of questions to you. नहीं हो रही, bank नहीं बढ़े. You know, we have a bunch of these startups and and and businesses but overall वह change behavior change वगैरह नहीं नज़र आ रहा तो मुझे ऐसा बंदा जो कि उसमें involve नहीं है वह तो बड़ा कहता है कि यार यह तो शायद कभी भी digitize नहीं होगा. What were you seeing that I wasn't that made you really bullish on Pakistan and think that okay, this is the expansion that, that makes a lot of sense. Okay. The two things. When we're looking at the market, of course, the first thing that you see is the market potential. Right?

Egypt is a very similar market to Pakistan. Right? Culturally, how people, spend their lives, it's it's a very similar market. How business is done is very similar as well. When one of our founders was actually learning in Karachi, he thought that the plane has turned around and gone back to Cairo. So the thing is we we saw two things. One was that the number of POS machines in Pakistan, it doesn't it does not justify, according to the potential. Right. Right? Egypt, four years back, were around the same number. So they were they have a population of around 110,000,000, which is half our population, and they had around 70,000 POS machines. Okay. Right? In four years, they have gone from 70,000 to 750,000 POS machines.

10x growth? 10x growth. Right? And is that led by one player or multiple players contributed? Multiple players contributed.

But the potential of the market was being harnessed. And how it was being harnessed? By by adopting the right strategy. Mhmm. The strategy is just not to create good products. Mhmm. Right? Because a lot of good products have been created which have been not promoted or not distributed in the way where the mass masses could have benefited from them. Right. So PMOP actually not only creates those products but also distributes them in a way where it actually reaches to everyone in the market. Right? Whether it's on ground distribution, whether it's our online distribution, we we we call ourselves a payments distribution company. ठीक है? Powered by technology, of course. Right? So that is what we saw in Pakistan. There is a lot of potential to go into the market and distribute good payment products. And if you have a complete suite of products to suit everyone and the agility to to improvise and to to adapt to the market needs, There is no reason you're not able to do it. Mhmm. So this is, in one word, it's market potential. We we believe that there is a lot of market potential. There has been reasons. With all of our experiences that we have had in our in the digital payment space, there are reasons for market not adopting it. It is very important to address those reasons.

Makes sense. And in terms of really bringing in newer players, like let's say for example कि, you know, fintech player आता है, digital bank आता अभी वह licenses भी बढ़ने वाले हैं. D bank है I believe, तानिया का जो आ रहा है. Let's assume वह आता है, वह अपने आप को live करता है. Do you have the agility that the word that you mentioned? क्योंकि I am assuming that the tech team is sitting somewhere in Egypt? Yes. And so Do you have a tech house in Pakistan. अच्छा, you have one in Pakistan as well. So you have the in house visibility. We are basically making a regional, sorry to cut you. We are making a regional tech hub in Pakistan. अच्छा. Yeah. Oh, wow. And so you you have the the the agility to be able to quickly integrate newer players shift के आ रहा चाहिए use case switch हो रहा है तो हम उसको real time पर switch करके, integrate करके हम अपने आप को सामने ला सकते हैं rather than कि जो historically banking उसमें होता था कि बहुत एक slow, process

के through आ हिस्ता, हिस्ता, हिस्ता, हो रहा है. Look, if you don't do that, we'll fail as well. It's as simple as that, right? If you if you don't have the agility, you don't have a distribution network, you don't make the market aware of what you can do for them, of course, the adoption will not happen. The reason for that is we are very objective oriented, and our objective is to digitize the market. Mhmm. Right? So we do have we do want to spend where where it's needed, but it is needed to be spent on digitization of these merchants. And that's where we bring in our tech stack, which is already matured and developed. So it's not something that we are building from scratch for Pakistan. Mhmm. The of course, the team, we have hired in Pakistan. But, again, to answer your question, this is probably the right time to actually go into this business because, the cost of operations for businesses only comes down through rateization. Right. Makes sense. Right? The second thing is that our founders are from Egypt. Right? They have seen 2011, Kasara turmoil Right. In Egypt. Right? So they are not people who get scared very easily. Right? They have gone through economic crisis as well. They are going still, they are, having similar sort of economic situation in Egypt that we have in Pakistan. तो काफी हद तक हम एक दूसरे से relate कर सकते हैं. And they have thrived in those conditions, right? So they exactly know how to utilize these conditions from, their experience. So frankly speaking, we feel that this is the right time to be in Pakistan. Makes sense.

I had originally planned this conversation for one hour लेकिन यह कि, I mean this was something जो कि बहुत अर्थ से मेरे दिमागों में पसीदी थी चीज़. I really wanted to have that understanding and you've been able to give that to me. So thank you so much for that. Yeah, that's right. There are couple of questions that I'd really like to focus on wider beyond pay mob and your personal experience. पहला मुझे यह बताइएगा कि, बल्कि राधव अगर मैं pay mob कब से पूछूं, उसके context में ही मुझे बता दें. दस साल from now, what's the image of the financial or rather the banking, fintech, इस पूरी industry की आप क्या image देखते हैं Pakistan की? क्योंकि पिछले दस साल और आज में मुझे कोई ख़ासा difference उस तरह से नज़र नहीं आता. But you are absolutely right कि there is a lot of shift that's happening. You know, mobile penetration, mobile broadband penetration, young population that is very receptive to change, inflation making cash handling fairly difficult also in a way. बड़े बड़े notes आ गए हैं कि अब आपको अगर एक average mobile phone ढाई लाख रुपए का लेना है तो उसको ATM से निकालकर लेकर जाना है जो ख़वारी. आज से दस साल पहले वह चीज़ नहीं थी आप लोग, you know. There are a lot of other indicators as well that really make it conducive क्या जहां पर आप कह रहे हैं कि मैं दरमियान में एक player आया हूं वहां पर आपको you know there are different aspects of the industry की weight lifting different different लोग कह रहे हैं. कोई कह रहा कि यार मैं consumer को पहली दफा digital wallet पर लेकर आ रहा हूं. कोई कह रहा है कि यार मैं जो है वह consumer को you know you got all these sort of bazaars and retailers and all of these people who are also digitizing the consumer in a way, जो जो merchants हैं, उनकी जो sense of कि maybe I I can have a POS machine is much easier compared to ten years ago if you were to go to that person and say listen like there is this technology product that you need to use and it would be a different conversation altogether. इस सारे को मत देना ज़र रखते हुए क्योंकि आपने जैसा चार साल Egypt की मिसाल दी, बड़ी मज़े की मिसाल है और हम China की देखते हैं तो you know cashless cities exist करती हैं. All happened in a matter of decade. Yeah. So how do you, where what's your vision with pay more ten years from now and overall how do you see the market, ten years from now? Well,

firstly, I'll answer your second question. What's what how do I see the market in ten And, of course, PayMob would have to play its role in order to achieve that. Right? देखिए, if I if I just take your comment that you haven't seen the change in the last ten years, the change is there. It's not visible to the customer right now. Right. Because we were at we were at a time where where most of the banking was check based. Right? There has been a lot of card issuance that has happened during this time to customers. There has been a lot of mobile apps that have been created. So a lot of digital channels evolved in the last ten years, in the last fifteen years. I I remember when I joined MCB in 2006, Internet banking was the best word. Mhmm. There were no mobile apps. They were they were they were, plastics were there, but then penetration of those plastics was Very niche. That high. Very niche. So in market goes through a change, and this market has gone into the change. And this is the potential that we see. Right now, it's at that cusp where it's ready to take off. Because, like you said, there are players who are digitizing the supply chain. Mhmm. There are players who are, digitizing the invoice management. There are players who are digitizing payments. There are players who are digitizing, customer experience. Right? So and the other thing that has happened, which is which is brilliant for this market, is everybody has realized their roles in the last ten years. There have been a lot of tug in tug of war. Everything I would want. I'm a big bank. I would want to do everything. Everybody wanted to do everything, basically. Right? Now everybody has come to terms with the fact that, look, I cannot do everything. There's still few players who think they can, but, most of the most of the players have evolved into a collaborative sort of, environment. And this is probably the most exciting part about the market right now. So BNPLs now, we need to lend. Mhmm. Payment, processes mean, we need to just process payments. We as pay mob actually make it a conscious effort that we are not going to go into this space. Mhmm. Because this is our partner's space. Yeah. We're not gonna become a competition. We're not to, we're not going to become a competition to our partner. Yeah. We are going to be their support system, the infrastructure layer, the technology layer within their within their services. Mhmm. Right? So the the collaboration has probably evolved in the last ten years. It's learning of the industry that the industry has gone through. And now everybody knows. Like, for instance, and I'll I'll give you this example because it's important for us to understand that as a partner of Bank Alfalah, and I'm not just saying because, they are partners as acquirers. बस but they have opened everything to us to support us in utilizing the advantages from our technology. Right? So a bank doing that is is great for the industry. Yeah. It's very progressive. It's very progressive. Yeah. Right? So the thing is I I I believe in the last ten years what has happened is collaboration. The and these collaborations are going to now change the industry. So you're going to see supply chains being digitized from not just till the retailer, but up till the customer. Right. Right? The entire bet connected together. And if you have read the M Pesa story, it was supply chain digitization from where the M Pesa wallet initiated. Right? So the thing is until and unless it it it is very difficult. It is very naive to think that I'm going to give a good customer up and the merchant is going to accept, start accepting digital payments. Mhmm. Because the merchant has to pay the supplier.

He is not going to go to the ATM or the bank to transfer. The wholesaler, The wholesaler to the distributor,

to the manufacturer. There's this entire cycle at the back end. Yeah. So if if the only the front end is digitized, how do you expect the rest of it to happen? Yeah. Right? So so the thing is I, we believe that the digitization is something that happens across verticals. In order for that to happen, the industry needs to be ready in all different aspects. Payments is one of them. We offer digital payments. There are others who offer loans. There are others who offer infrastructure. There are others who offer working co spaces. Right? So could you have imagined not having an office, still working Mhmm. Out of your home? Yeah. Right? That's all a reality now. So we believe that we have evolved into a state in the last ten years that the next ten years, the digitization, the change would happen as far as adoption is concerned. So now it's time for the customers to adopt, for the merchants to adopt because because everybody has come in together, digitized their space, and now connecting with each other. Makes sense.

How do you see... And this is gonna be the last question. But, ज़हर आप, financial space के अंदर हैं तो उससे उसके अंदर तो आपने मुझे एक बार एक एक sort of 10 का road map दिया. But considering कि Pakistan में बहुत सारे young लोग हैं and a large part of मुझे अगर मैं Pakistan को देखूं ना तो Pakistan का जो सबसे बड़ा problem है हम अपने drawing room में बैठकर culture discuss कर सकते हैं दस चीज़ें और discuss कर सकते हैं but it's an economic problem. An economic problem is always tied to the way that business is done, is the way that financial literacy है, financial inclusion है. How much are you connected to to your economy, right? And and how progressive you are there. And so that's where your core expertise has been over the last couple of decades as well. Based on that, if you were to extrapolate that and and give me a vision of how you see Pakistan of 2050, what would that look like knowing what you know now, seeing what you've seen throughout your life? How do you see Pakistan thirty years from now in 2050?

And you're referring to the financial space or you're talk talking about I'm talking about overall. I'm I'm saying take for financial space as a,

as as a launchpad. But overall, how do you see the country in thirty years from now? Look, we are a very resilient nation by design.

Right? We have, gone through different circumstances, but we have always bounced back. So I'm very positive that 2050 outlook would be much more positive than we have today. Right? Now how would that happen? That would happen through efforts by every stakeholder in this country in order to make sure that we advance. And when when I say advance, it means technologically, socially, and economically in every in every industry, in every aspect. Right. And I see a lot of people making and bringing that change. I'll I'll I'll share I'll share something with you. And that's when I was doing consultancy with National Savings. While I was working for the private sector, I always thought that, working in a government sector, people will not be willing to work, and it would it would be a very difficult thing. But frankly speaking, when I went there, I found out that it's not the people. Right? People are willing to work. People, I have I've met most amazing people during that time in the in the bureaucratic and the, national savings organization. Mhmm. Right? It's just that we don't invest into those people. Trainings, bringing them up the curve, letting them know, interacting with them. It has to be a cohesive approach. Everybody has to play their role. हम एक gloves बहुत ज़्यादा use करते हैं public private partnership. Mhmm. And that public private partnership actually needs to get executed for 2050 to be successful and that is what I am seeing right now. I am I am part of, committee that was National Ecommerce Council, under Ministry of Commerce. We are working, I'm part of Pakistan FinTech Association, and I'm part of different such forums which are coming together in order to make sure that we evolve in every aspect. So therefore, like I said, I'm very positive about the outlook. And at twenty fifty, it would be a much more digitized Pakistan, one, A much more financially included because then people would have the reason to get financial services, right? And a much more prosperous because it would be a documented economy, Right? So I believe 2050 is very bright for Pakistan.

I hope after a very very long time, recent times and people's sentiments have changed, after a very long time, I've gotten a very very positive outlook, I really sincerely hope, that inshallah we should be able to see that. I hope so. Together. But, you know, thank you so much for coming in and sharing all the insight, because personally this has been one of my most favorite episodes, simply because of the fact that a lot of these questions have been on my mind for so long, and they're such well guarded secrets not by design, but because, you know, it's it's boring, it's banking, it's it's happening behind the scenes. But it's really something that, in a in a very non glamorous way impact all of us. I'm I'm I'm glad that you were able to, you know, explain that out and and जो मुझे personally outlook, जो मुझे feel आई है, सच्ची बात है. Recent times में मैं I've been speaking to people and I've been a little down. This conversation leaves me very very motivated. So thank you so much for that. And, you know, overall, I think, you know, what PayMob is doing, I'm very excited to see किया आने वाले वक़्त में. How do you guys grow and how do you guys scale and and the the the efforts that you guys put in to build this industry. फौरवाद भाई, thank you so much. I thank you for inviting me here. It was a great conversation with you. And for all of you guys, thank you so much for watching. अगर आपकी episode पसंद आई, दोस्तीयानों से ज़रूर share करिएगा. Let me know your thoughts on digital payments, financial inclusion, financial services. You know, आप कोई vendor हैं, कोई e commerce का business चलाते हैं, freelancer हैं, वह हैं. तो आपके क्या problems face आते हैं? Article भी share करते हैं you can join us well और your lifetime वाले subscriber इस दमाएंगे आने वाली episodes की आपको notification मिलेगी. यहां पर कहीं पर easy पैसा जाए, cash साधा प्यार होगा. If you'd like to support the channel, we accept anything from 1 rupee to as much as you like. Hopefully, someday हम payment upgrade करेंगे. But anyways, this was Sayed Mazamelas and Zedi. You're watching Thought Behind. Thanks. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.