Why Pakistan's fintechs are failing the masses

सारा ख़विदीना साथ welcome back to another episode of Thought Behind Things. माहिल से मौजूद है एक बहुत ही खास मेहमान all the way from garage ही if I am not wrong. That's right. And he is a very old member of the fintech industry. इनको पुराने का मकसद ही था. आप लोगों ने अभी recently देखी होगी कुलसूमला खानी के साथ मेरी एक podcast हुई थी जिसके अंदर मैंने बड़ा detail में अपना ख़च्चा भी ज़ाहिर किया था कि fintech industry while a lot of good stories are coming in from that. मुझे personally on ground उतनी speed में change होता हुआ नज़र नहीं आ रहा. Brandon from सादा पर भी आए थे और वह बड़ी widely appreciated podcast थी and I mean Brandon is doing remarkable work. But उस podcast में when I was talking to him तो constantly you know even he was saying कि our goal is urban sort of educated पाकिस्तानीs and that is for us the first customer that we're we're primarily looking at. And so for me, I'm really confused. कि the rest of Pakistan, which is the majority of Pakistan, which constitutes maybe at least more than half the GDP जो कि consistently has been kept out of the system उसको आप किस तरह से target करते हैं and for that you know we have someone with us today अत्यब ताहिर he was formally the CEO of JazzCash he was before that Chief Risk Officer of Tamil Bank and has been the Head of Digital at HBL and the country head of Mastercard so very diverse experience both formal legacy banking as well as new age fintech players. Sir thank you so much for being part of this show. My pleasure to be here. मैं conversation को थोड़ा सा start करूंगा just trying to understand a little bit about yourself you know where were you born? How was your early life and growing up? Education मुखारा कहां से ली? Sure.

I was actually born in Libya, believe it or not. Right? So I was, my father served at the Air Force. उनकी deputation थी Libya में and they went there. They felt it was the right time to have a third child I guess and after thirteen years I was was blessed with the family that I was born into. And how long were you in Libya for? I think my father was there for three years. I spent two of my two of the three years there. सच्ची don't really have a lot of memories there I am assuming. No. Except जो मैंने birth certificate पर देखा है कि उसमें मेरा नाम जो है वह बहुत लंबा लिखा हुआ है. अच्छा. Yeah. वह full name of your full name and your father's full name I must be. My full name, my father's full name and my grandfather's full name. अच्छा

अच्छा I I just found out my sister got a got a driver's license in Dubai. Yeah. And उनका भी यही है कि like it's like three of her name and then her husband's full name with middle names and everything वह बारह words कहा हुआ है. I think it's a Middle Eastern thing. It is yeah वह

शज्जा ना सब जानना चाहते हैं. तो you know growing up in an air force family it was very exciting times क्योंकि you know growing from air force base to air force base, making new friends, bumping into old friends that you hadn't seen a few years. It actually shaped me for my life because मेरी ज़िंदगी transition से भरपूर रही है. Right. कि बारह साल की उम्र में हमने अपना immigration process शुरू कर दिया था. My father retired from the air force. We started migrating to The US. Right. वह भी मेरे parents का decision था to provide a better life for the youngest born क्योंकि बाकी दो तो पढ़ चुके थे तब तक. And then you know just transitioning into a new culture understanding what what being an immigrant in The United States is, what having no money is all about. Where'd you land? Boston. My sister was already situated in Boston. One of the most expensive cities in The US, the worst place to go as an immigrant. Well baptism by fire I guess. Interesting and so you guys settle there? We settle there. There is a town right at Boston called Belmont. Right. तो पहले कुछ ऐसा उधर थे. फिर, you know, I ended up going to college in a neighboring state in New Hampshire. Right.

Smoke. आपकी बात काट रही है. क्या क्या नाम है यार उनका? वह बड़े मशहूर साहब जो हैं. यार वह जो very old

Bernie Sanders उनकी I believe जो है वह That's Vermont. अच्छा that's Vermont. He is from the other neighboring state. Right right right. Bernie Sanders is from there. New Hampshire is known for their motto which is live free or die. अच्छा. तो मज़े की बात यह there is no taxes there. No taxes at all? No taxes in New Hampshire. No income tax, no sales tax तो In The US? In The US. Wow, that's like capitalist heaven. Wow अच्छा. तो उन्होंने किया किया है कि उन्होंने अपने border पर malls बना दिए हैं. Massachusetts से लोग आते हैं वहां भी shopping करने हैं. Oh.

So उनका कुछ और हो ना हो वह इसी खाते में जो है अपनी industry पूरी चलाते हैं.

और you know दोस्त मुख्तलिफ किस्म के taxes हैं जैसे food पर tax है लेकिन ज़्यादा चीज़ों पर tax नहीं है. Interesting and how is the infrastructure if they don't have a lot of taxes? It's very good. I mean how does the state make money? Federal से लेती है? कुछ चीज़ों पर उन्होंने tax किया हुआ है. लेकिन this was done to make it a business friendly state. क्योंकि, you know, North East में सर्दी भी बहुत होती है. कोई business भी नहीं करना चाहता. A lot of small businesses there. Right. They do have some people who live in New Hampshire but work in Massachusetts. They pay certain kind of tax. तो one way or the other they make liquor पर tax है. Interesting, interesting. और यह मज़ार बात है कि

just wider conversation that we're gonna get into later on. But how policy can be looked at in a in an entirely different way because in Pakistan a lot of the times states or provinces are thinking कि how do we maximize our revenues? How do we increase our taxes? Whereas when I look at India or when I look at like just this example तो वहां पर states जो हैं वह आपस में complete कर रही हैं और वह कह रही हैं कि यार how are we increasing business? How are we increasing opportunities? We in Pakistan really think about federal. We think कि nationally हम क्या कर रहे हैं? हालांकि हर state की अपनी unique एक requirement है और उस requirement के हिसाब से you can really work with policy to encourage businesses to come in, to to really compete with each other. Yeah. But चलिए, ऐसा so you

were there for college? I was there for college New Hampshire में and while I was there I actually dabbled into you know some small entrepreneurial ventures. वही ज़माना था when I started my consulting as well. अच्छा.dotcom का ज़माना था. Right. तो कभी किसी के लिए strategy बना दी, कभी किसी के लिए कुछ कर दिया just to keep the kitchen going. And what did you study? So I studied management information technology. अच्छा. लेकिन साथ में मैंने बहुत से philosophy के courses लिए, economics के courses लिए, political science के courses लिए because वह वह shock था और एक immigrant pressure था कि बेटा कोई नौकरी वाली degree होनी चाहिए. हां. Which you know tough four years because I wasn't like the most studious person right. मेरे वही mediocre किस्म के grades आते थे तो very tough conversation with my father every every three months or so. Right. But I made it out alive and here I am. And and so there was a time when I mean you management information systems

उसके बाद essentially यह वाली space boom की थी. Yeah. And so how was your experience being there in The US like right at the heart of it? Also in Boston where much of the innovation happens essentially at least on an academic level though. So how was that experience early on? So I I did what any

average person would do and found an opportunity based based on where I was making the most money. Right. And that was investment banking. Right. And I want got into fixed income trading. Ok. तो borns की trading में मैंने Fidelity Investments के साथ अपना career शुरू किया right after right after college. And उसके लिए I was working in a place called Madamac, New Hampshire. That's where the fixed income trading desk was and you know moonlighting in in New York quite a bit. Right. So what Wall Street banker by proxy just learned a little bit of fundamentals of finances, financial services and then nine eleven happened. Right? So everything changed and I woke up one morning and a very good friend of mine, a friend that, you know, I had been had been seeing for like a year and a half, that person told me कि they didn't see themselves being friends with someone who looked like a terrorist. Really? And that was like a knife to the heart, right? Straight up. Yeah, they were like, so September 16, this person calls me and says, you know, I don't think I can be friends with somebody who looks like a terrorist. First I thought I was, they were joking because they had known me for such a long time. Right?

But then they were like like, no. I'm I'm serious.

And that that sort of put me on a very different path. Then I came to Pakistan just take a break from everything and then I ended up spending three years here when I only intended to spend three months. अच्छा. So I worked with the Asian Development Bank with differed. उस वक्त Pakistan में लिखी जा रही थी poverty reduction strategy paper. अच्छा. Which was part of the millennium development goals for the UN और ministry of human development थी यहां पर doctor नसीम शाह lead करते थे उसे. So they had sponsored this program to write Pakistan's poverty reduction strategy paper and diffid was putting up the money for it. Right. So I ended up on that project then I ended up on a project with the Asian Development Bank जहां पर हमने बलूचिस्तान की integrated water resource management policy लिखी which was a restructuring of a debt into a बलूचिस्तान की integrated water resource management policy.

अच्छा, बलूचिस्तान के अंदर पानी के infrastructure पर कोई development हुई है generally? लिखी गई थी. My understanding is कि बस वह जहां पर पानी है आ गया तो आ गया, बस पढ़ा है तो पढ़ा है. So. कराल system तो वह जो British देकर को सुनने में आते हैं ना British बस देकर गए थे तो वही बस है आज तक कुछ नहीं आगे बना. So that was the thing, right? कि the कार्य system was dying.

The water table had gone down from 120 feet to 800 feet. अच्छा. And apple orchards in places like मस्तुग outside of कोएटा were drying up. Right. तो यह जो water resource management policy थी, उसके अंदर recommendations like growing olives instead of apples. Apples are very water intensive fruit. Building delay action dams. यह जो अभी बलूचिस्तान में हुआ है with the flesh. यह olive की recommendation हमने दो हज़ार तीन में दी थी. जो अब if there is one thing that they have done right out of that policy is go to water friendly crops. Ok. और अगर delay action dams वन जाते हैं उस वक्त तो बहुत सा काम जो भी flood ने बहुत सा नुकसान जो flood ने किया है वह शायद कदरे कम होता because you would have helped in increasing the water table. पानी खड़ा होता, seeping करता और आपका water table increase होता है but you know. So delay action dams क्या होते हैं essentially? It's basically a mud dam जो आप water flow के उसमें बनाते हैं ताकि पानी खड़ा हो जाए and it just seeps into into the ground and raises the water level up. अच्छा, तो एकदम से जब पानी आता है flood करता और ज़्यादा सारा उससे बेहतर रहेगा वह पानी आए, you know, water table को बढ़ा दे and then excess water. Basically आप छोटी छोटी झीले बना देते हैं. Right. तो उसमें पानी खड़ा होता है, सीपन कर जाता है फिर और पानी आता है वह सीपन करता है. Right. कुछ आगे निकल जाता है फिर आगे जाकर वह मुश्किल झीलों में बैठता है. But that never took place, that never happened sadly. Something that looked good on the business school application and I used it to get into Babson then but sadly it didn't go into fruition. मैंने अपना MBA किया Babson से which is also in Boston. So I had this love affair with that city. Right. And then after I did my MBA and the three, for the three years that I was in Pakistan तब मुझे ख्याल अंदाज़ा हुआ कि how God works in mysterious ways, right? Because if I hadn't come to Pakistan at that time, I would not have met the person that I have now been married to for eighteen years. अच्छा. So we met when I was in Pakistan and in between this time between you know business school and and undergrad, I met the person who's now my life partner and the mother of my children. Very very interesting. This was while you were working for the development sector? This was while I was working as a consultant.

Right. And so business school you graduate in what year? 2007. ठीक है. And straight out of that you came back to Pakistan?

I went I worked with Johnson and Johnson. अच्छा. In out of US? In New Brunswick. Yeah. The galactic headquarters as they say. And I worked in medical devices. I was slated to come back to Pakistan actually. अच्छा. Because I was part of this leadership development program that they had and I had chosen Pakistan as my market to go back into. लेकिन फिर बेनज़ीर got assassinated and there was political upheaval as there is now. Right. There there always is. And Johnson and Johnson decided not to deploy an international resource to Pakistan.

Right.

तब तक मेरा emerging markets के साथ एक love affair वन चुका हुआ था because even when I was a Johnson and Johnson I was looking at emerging markets. तो फिर मैंने मुख्तलिफ emerging markets में opportunities ढूंढना शुरू की और एक consulting firm है जिसका नाम है Protiviti. It's a risk consulting firm. Right. उनके साथ मैं Kuwait चला गया. ढाई साल के लिए मैंने Kuwait में I help them build business in the financial services space. How's Kuwait if you compare that to let's say other middle eastern countries like like

Saudi or The UAE?

It's like a slice of heaven where you feel like a third rate citizen.

Is it is it fully properly developed? Yeah,

is. Well, it's a rich country, right? अच्छा. अब तो उनका कोएती दिनार is like $607,100 rupees. अच्छा. Petro economy, तो सब कुछ petro economy पर चलता है. जो वहां के अपने citizens हैं, they are well taken care of by the state. Expats उनकी economy चलाते हैं, चलाते थे. अब वह ऐसा ऐसा कोईtization कर रहे हैं. It's not really developed per se but they have provided a very comfortable life for the people who are there. Right. And then again in the shadows जो उनके labor camps हैं और जो oil field के camps हैं, उधर जो labor है उसका तो उसका जो हाल है वह शायद

mean that's pretty much the same as barring UAE that's pretty much what the rest of the Middle East was, right? कि पैसा आ रहा है, commodity बेचकर पैसा आ रहा है, उससे आप दुनिया की हर चीज़ import भी कर सकते हैं, दुनिया की हर चीज़ आप जो है वह हर कित्म की luxury भी ले सकते हैं. But over time, it's now becoming unsustainable and so we see with the vision 2030 with Saudi. They're aggressively trying to, वो लोग कह रहे हैं यार, NEOM anytime आया ये वो, लेकिन they understand कि यार, we need to follow the Dubai model and essentially they're building the next Dubai. And they're trying to create some sort of a trade and commerce beyond their conventional और अभी मैं I was there a couple of weeks ago. 15% tax on, you know, all items. Value added tax कहते हैं I believe उसको. And then income के ऊपर crazy taxes लगा दिए हैं. तो पाकिस्तानी there aren't happy because they used to go there and earn a lot of money. Mhmm. तो अब वह economies मुझे यह वाला system था कि बस यह, you know, citizens well taken care of. Yeah. अभी तो चलो high commodity prices हैं but eventually आने वाले वक़्त में ही नज़र आ रहा है कि that's not going to last very long with the green post climate change era. Yeah. And the and the cops happening here and there. Yeah. Do you think they were they had the understanding कि we have to evolve?

Yeah. Petrol, we have already reached fuel peak, right? Or petrol peak. तो अब जितनी भी petro economies थी they have to diversify, including places like Kuwait and they have to take care of their own growing population. जहां पर उन्होंने where they failed essentially and Saudi में भी यह है. उन्होंने अपनी जो talent development है उसमें initial years में पैसे invest नहीं किए. So that sort of leads to a problem कि आपके पास वह talent है ही नहीं जो उनकी high skill jobs को fill कर सके. Indigenously कर सके. Yeah. A century. तो they have to rely on experts at least for a transitionary period and that could be very very long, maybe a couple of generations. I would say twenty, twenty five years, yeah. One generation at least. आपको like अब आपको UAE में नज़र आना शुरू हो गया कि वहां का local talent. Self sustainable हो गया. हां, बेहतर है बाकी जगहों से. भारेन का भी बेहतर है because भारेन was the poorest of the petro economies, right? Right. और उनके उनके पास भी अब indigenous लोग बहुत अच्छे skills के साथ आ रहे हैं. यकद्रे बेहतर skills के साथ आ रहे हैं. For places like Saudi and Kuwait we are still I would say twenty-twenty five years. Then again I am no expert, right? There are smarter people than I working on this problem. And so how long were you there for? I was there for two and a half years. And what was next? Then I went back to The US and that's where my journey in digital began, right? So I started working with a 400 year old publishing firm. अच्छा. Elsevier, known for the for publishing the Galileo papers और उनका 100 and 27 year old at that time was their database essentially abstracts का जिसको digitize किया, right? और फिर उसके ऊपर एक business बनाया जिसको उन्होंने collaboration के लिए, funding के लिए, citation के लिए खोल दिया. The database was called Scopus and the products that were created were called CYVAL. Interesting. So I was part of the CYVAL business for a for a very short period of time and that's when I sort of really started getting getting knee deep into digitization. While I was working at Elsevier, there's another big publishing firm by the name of Condenast. वह भी अपनी cosmopolitan golf digest.

I believe they they the reason why I know this is because they put Pakistan in one of the top destinations to visit back in 2020 and everybody was sharing that yes yes.

Traveler उनका है, Conde Nast magazine उनका अपना है. Right. It's the fourth tallest building in Times Square. अच्छा. So the Conde Nast. So they are huge. Yeah, it's the I think one of the largest magazine publishers. Wow. और उस वक्त publishing houses were thinking about कि यार हम digitize कैसे करें? The only one that had sort of cracked it was New York Times. उन्होंने अपनी subscription शुरू की थी, nobody was subscribing to it and everybody wanted to get onto the subscription model. Right. So that was really my first foray into understanding digitization and understanding how traditional businesses work. फिर कुदरत का करना कुछ ऐसा हुआ कि my mother-in-law got diagnosed with cancer. अच्छा. And at that time I started looking at opportunities for for us to come back to Pakistan for a little bit of time and I ran into this opportunity at Tamil Bank. छोटा सा micro finance bank was barely just profitable. They had just gotten a chief strategy officer position approved and I found out about it. So I pursued that opportunity. I was 32 at that time and नदीम who was the founder of तमिल bank, he took a chance on a 32 year old that he didn't know out of New York. And he said कि आओ मेरे साथ, you know, come and talk to my team, my management team. If they, if they like you, then, you know, I'll think about hiring you. Three days later I was on a flight, to come and see him. I met the management team, immediately clicked with a few of the people in the management team and by 06:00 that very same evening, I got a call from नदीम saying कि, I have an offer for you and you you have thirty seconds to decide whether you want to take it or not. I said I need to consult with my wife. I don't make any decisions without talking to my wife. I said, ok. I'll give you that exception. Call me back when you're ready. We had a quick discussion. I called him back the next day and I said, I'm taking it. And month later I was in Pakistan, lock stock in barrel. I only came for three years honestly. मेरा मेरा ख्याल था कि तीन साल लगाएंगे, aunty would get better and then we would probably move into, move back. Those three years have turned into almost eleven years now. अच्छा.

Yeah. And so how long did you serve at EZPassas or तमीर bank at the time? I think EZPassas नहीं आया था. EZPassas आ चुका था. So EZPassas उस वक्त Telenor के साथ था और तमीर was the banking list. Looking at the micro financing. जो यह micro loans and agri loans and all of these things. Right. And you were looking at strategy or risk? I initially was looking at strategy.

ठीक है. डेढ़ साल मैंने strategy पर काम किया पौने दो साल और फिर the risk position opened up and नदीम called me one day out of the blue and he is like, young man, you are now the chief risk officer. I'm like, I don't know anything about risk. And he's like, you know, you'll you'll figure it out. Right. But it was a great experience. I got I got to work with सलीम रज़ा who was the ex governor. He was on our board. So getting trained by him was again baptism by fire. बहुत कुछ सीखा and for four and a half years when I was at तमीर, we achieved a lot. The team was so great कि when I joined I think the profits were 200,000,000 rupees. By the time I left our profits were close to 1,300,000,000 and that's when Teleno was buying the full stake. Right. तो फिर वहां से मैं जब निकला तो मैंने कहा यार Pakistan में मैंने सबसे बड़ा micro finance bank के साथ काम कर लिया है and then the HPL opportunity came knocking. They were building a team for digital. I had a conversation, I had a few conversations and I ended up getting sold on the vision that they wanted to be, you know, a forward looking bank. Right. This is back in 2014?

2016.

'16. Yeah, 2016 में यह so I came on to the team तब उनकी app वन रही थी, बहुत मसले थे but अबरार my boss at the time he was you know he had a vision. The bank had a vision. उनके अपने New York के मसले लद्द चल रहे थे which they have you know resolved effectively और फिर हमने एक digital vision पर काम करना शुरू किया. तो शुरू शुरू में पचहत्तर साल पुराना bank thinking कि जो digitization है it's just a hobby. But we didn't start with the app. App was just the outcome, right? We start with the processes. We looked at what needed to be fixed on the backend for it to be, for it to be an effective app. And I believe that's a process that's still ongoing, three years after I have left.

How long were you there for? I was there for about three and a half years. अच्छा, so you were there for a while. Yeah. चलिए, so skip out the the what was the next one?

Mastercard. ठीक है. Mastercard तो it was a it was a no brainer opportunity. When it came, it was an opportunity to work with a world class payment technology company, an option to grow the market in Pakistan. I took over six weeks just, six weeks before COVID lockdown.

Right.

And for two, the next two years I worked out of my study. अच्छा. लेकिन in that time That must be must have been the most exciting time because

that's where the requirement just sort of went through the roof. Yeah. So we grew our market share by 26

points. We went from being in the mid twenties to being in the high forties in terms of market share and then we grew the revenue by nearly two x in the same time. अच्छी बात यह है कि we were able to create this philosophy in Mastercard कि with by tapping into markets like Pakistan that's where the growth is going to come from और यह चीज़ अभी भी both for Mastercard and Visa and other big technology firms they realize के there is tremendous potential in Pakistan. उस potential को harness कैसे करना है? Is is the challenge. Right? So how do they grow their revenue five x, six x while also growing the financial inclusion in this space? While also serving SMEs, while serving freelancers? Those are the challenges that I actually got pulled into solving. So in addition to doing the role in Pakistan for country for developing the country business, I actually helped build four verticals for the region. जहां पर उन्होंने SME पर काम किया, उन्होंने freelancers के लिए काम किया, mass lifers, people जो कि दो दो ढाई लाख रुपए से ज़्यादा नहीं बनाएंगे अपनी ज़िंदगी में per month, उनके लिए काम किया और youth के लिए काम किया. So they create these four verticals specifically for Pakistan and other emerging markets like Egypt and Nigeria etcetera. And that now has become part of part of the repertoire that they take to markets. Pakistan they see as a scale market. अच्छी बात यह हुई कि a lot of these multinationals are now realigning Pakistan from Asia Pacific to मीना. Right. Asia Pacific में हम चौथी या पांचवी most populous market हैं. मीना में हम सबसे बड़ी market है. तो all of a sudden सारे products का focus इधर आ जाता है and that I see that as a win for Pakistan especially when there is growing interest from multinationals and growing interest from startups in the मीना region. अब आप देखेंगे Egypt से बहुत से startups Pakistan आकर काम करना शुरू करना चाह रहे हैं. Civil आयाद they sort of faulted a little bit but अब pay mob आ रहा है और Telda आ रहा है और बहुत से players आना चाह रहे हैं Pakistan में जो कि showcase तो करते हैं Saudi में, UAE में लेकिन उनके लिए scale markets हैं Egypt and Pakistan. Interesting.

Yeah. अच्छा so Mastercard generally their revenue model is based on transactions. Is that correct? Or is it some sort of subscription model B2B?

How does that work? So they had traditionally had a core business which was the cards business. Right. And they make money on card fees, they make money on transactions. Every time money is switched between accounts they take a small portion of that. जब आप merchant के पास जाते हैं Pakistan में तो वह ढाई percent आपसे upfront charge करते हैं ना. That ढाई percent is actually charged to the merchant. उस ढाई percent के तीन sections हैं. तीन उसमें तीन चीज़ों तीन shares में split होता है. एक acquiring interchange है जो कि उनको मिलता है जिनकी machine है. ठीक है. जिसके ऊपर card चल रहा है. ठीक है. एक issuing interchange है जो card वालों को मिलता है जिसने card issue किया हुआ है bank ने. ठीक है. और एक आपकी scheme की fee है जो कि cents में होती है ranges between like 1¢ to you know $14.15, 20¢. वह fixed fee होती है, it's not a percentage और यह सब MDR का हिस्सा होती है. MDR is the merchant discount rate और वह charge होती है उसके उससे उससे पैसे बनाते हैं. So that's the core business. So जो

fixed rate है वह जा रहा है Mastercard को. Yeah. And so bucket size then makes an impact on the bottom line of the machine and the The acquiring bank and the issuing bank. हां, क्योंकि इनको तो flat मिल रहा है. Yeah. इनको percentage मिल रही है. नहीं. Mastercard को flat मिल रहा Flat मिल रहा है but Mastercard को इससे फ़र्क़ पड़ता कि वह सौ dollar है या हज़ार dollar है या दस हज़ार dollar है या वह सौ wave पर वह flat है तो flat है. So low low value transactions पर वह कम होता है थोड़ा and the dynamics vary from market to market. अच्छा.

Some of those things I can't talk about. Understandably. But partly because I don't even know. Right.

नहीं so my understanding would be कि वह होता है ना कि for a minimum buy in x is either like 5¢

or a percentage whichever is higher वाली बाज़ जो होती है. So it's a fixed, it's a fixed amount that is predetermined. Ok. Right? So वह जो भी आप जब आप किसी market के लिए interchange determine करते हैं तब आप वह fixed amount determine कर लेते हैं and it varies from market to market. Pakistan के लिए उन्होंने preferential rates दिए हुए हैं. And what's the utility

of a company like Mastercard in the ecosystem? So my understanding is कि यार ठीक है मेरे पास HHPL है वह bank है. वह जाकर vendor से बात कर रहा कह रहा है कि यार ठीक है तू किसी ने ख़रीदने मत सो अगर मैं historically जाऊं तो bank है bank के पास मेरा पैसा पड़ा है. Bank जाता और जाकर कहता है कि यार I'm gonna talk to a bunch of different vendors and whenever they need the money either I can verify it कि yes this guy is good so I'll give you the money or credit के ऊपर है कि मैं उस पर, you know, I loan him the money right now and pay pay on his behalf. Yeah. Is the utility of Mastercard the technology where the verification

is on point in a in the most simplest way? So, not just Mastercard, right? Pakistan में भी एक company है OneLink के नाम से which does something similar and OneLink के origins are exactly how Mastercard started. Mastercard started as a switch. The payment schemes work on what is known as a four party model generally और वह यह है कि आप एक party हैं, आप consumer हैं, मैं एक party हूं, मैं merchant हूं. मेरा bank एक party है और आपका bank एक party है. अगर मेरा और आपका bank एक है तो फिर भी वह दो separate parties हैं because they're essentially looking at two separate businesses, right? So switching that money from one account to another account, if it is in two different banks, is known as an off us transaction. Or Mastercard and other schemes traditionally provide the rails to switch that money. ठीक है. Right? And that's what they charge money for. For companies like Mastercard and international payment companies and Visa and others उन्होंने किया यह है कि उन्होंने अपना repertoire बढ़ा लिया है. They are not just switching companies anymore. Ok. They are technology companies. So they are providing fraud prevention, risk analysis, they are providing you know data analytics, they are providing cyber security और services कि अगर आपने अपना business grow करना है तो आपको advisory service भी provide करते हैं. So उन्होंने अपना revenue model diversify कर लिया है. I will give you an example of Pakistan. Pakistan when I took over as country head was primarily a payments driven business. Right. Switch business. Over the couple of years that I was there, we actually diversified it largely because of the regional push to make it into a core and services business because उन्होंने दुनिया में global benchmarks बना दिए हैं कि इतना revenue services से आना ही आना है. Right. यही बात is true for visa and I hope that this is also true for the local scheme as well because they need to up their game in the long term and become a payments technology company in the process too. Do you think the local scheme has a capability, vision, or incentivization for that? They may have the vision. They have to understand they cannot do it in isolation. They will have to partner. They will have to partner with either international players or they will have to partner with other local players to enhance their capabilities. अब आगे जो दुनिया है वह है open banking की दुनिया. So मेरा जो if I were to be part of that business I would tell them to become an open banking company, to become an API gateway जहां पर banks अपने API host करते And provide banking as a service. Right. और वह that is essentially the heart at the heart of where financial services is going now. Right? It's going to be about collaboration. It's not going to be about operating in isolation.

Okay. If I were to ask you for example, how do you see Mastercard or Visa in the future of banking considering कि जब तक वह switch companies थी तो I understand technology hadn't progressed as much. But in the age of digital, अगर मैं backend की भी बात करूं तो especially with the रास्त rails coming in and I'm not talking about cross border payments. That's that's a different ball game altogether. There's conversion there and उसकी जाहिर है. वह अभी भी थोड़ा सा इतना agile नहीं है. But जब हम local बात करते हैं current सीधे से उधर hop around कर रही है. तो it's really a matter of building the right and the most robust technology. That almost, to be very honest, in a one way or the other, every fintech company is building right now. Right? K. They have to make sure k. The ones and zeros aren't misplaced. Mhmm. Right? And they're verified and they're cross checked. What then what's the utility then of a third party legacy company? सवाल का मकसद थोड़ा सा यह है तो I'm going to put my tin foil cryptocurrency hat and and really be the devil's advocate and say कि यार centralized exchanges और और और verifiers of money, they're ठीक है. वह अभी जितना भी अपने आप को payment कर लें या कर लें, वह कर लें but inherently they're going to die out. Are what are your thoughts about that? So we are are going through

what what I would call the disintermediation super cycle. Ok. Right? Where all incumbents are at risk of losing their primary source of income and their primary source of revenue. What do you mean by that? That means कि for a company like Mastercard or Visa or any other payments player, rails are changing. Local rails बहुत से real time payments आ रहे हैं. रास्त के आपने बात की. दुनिया जहान में real time payments आ रहे हैं. इन companies ने क्या किया? They got ahead of that problem and started investing or buying rails companies. Right. So Mastercard for example, I know Mastercard. I am I am not here to speak on behalf of Mastercard. So I will talk about them as an example. उन्होंने एक company खरीदी Voka link के नाम से. ठीक है. Which does exactly that. UK में आप faster payments देख लें. Oyster card आपने शायद इस्तेमाल किया हो अगर आप गए हों UK तो वह faster payments के ऊपर based है और वह उन्होंने उन disintermediate technologies में invest करना शुरू कर दिया. ठीक है. यह for Mastercard at least started ten years ago. Visa is also on a path. I am sure other technology companies, payment technology companies are also on the same path. So उन्होंने इस disintermediation को anticipate किया और उन्होंने उसके अंदर आना शुरू कर दिया including crypto now, right? So Visa and Mastercard were one of the first ones to mainstream crypto payments through their cards. Crypto backed cards हैं. I think Visa is partner with Binance. Mastercard has just enabled NFT purchasing through crypto on their network. So, they are because they have a war chest, they are going and investing into these technologies. You are absolutely right. Decentralization of financial services is happening. Right. So traditional roles are changing. Crypto के अंदर एक बहुत बड़ा game changer जो है आपकी central bank digital currencies हैं. जिस जिस मुल्क ने अपनी central bank digital currency शुरू की है, they have started the process of disintermediating banks itself and the exchange of currency on the whole. I I don't want to speak on behalf of the regulator. I want to be very clear about that. I am not a representative of the central bank. But जहां तक मुझे पता है the central bank is also our central bank is also studying it and understanding कि उसके अंदर Pakistan की application, Pakistan में उसकी application क्या हो सकती है? Right. Right? But आपकी बात बिल्कुल बजाए कि यह जब distant intermediation होगी तो उसके अंदर incumbents का role change होगा और diminish होता जाएगा. उनके revenue models भी इसी हिसाब से change होंगे. इसलिए जो मैंने पहले बात की उन्होंने उन बड़ी companies ने अपने आप को diversify करना शुरू कर दिया है. Right. हमारे banks ने शायद वह journey अभी नहीं शुरू की. हमारे incumbents हैं like telcos ने भी वह journey शायद नहीं शुरू की. अच्छा

अगर मैं आपने CBDs का तस्करा किया बड़ी interesting वह है because मेरा ज़्यादी ख़याल यह है कि cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency as a as a product तो अभी वह boom bust cycle में चल रही है where there's a lot of excitement but then you really come out and try it and and फिर वह अभी तो आजकल तो blood बात चल ही रहा है but यही चलता ही रहता है. It's like pets.com. Sure, great idea. You can buy pets but can it really work in a in a real world environment? And so a lot of that's happening. But really, it's it's the technology that excites me. Yeah. And so when you talk about the technology, people see the the excitement in technology and the decentralization. Yeah. Sure, maybe a hundred years from now or maybe faster. I'm not trying to be cynical. But the fact is कि एक एक एक निज़ाम होता है society का और उस निज़ाम के अंदर बहुत question marks हैं, 100% truly decentralized decentralization के. बहुत सारी ऐसी negative वह हैं जो कि आपको अभी नहीं बताई जा रही ना, आपको सिर्फ़ प्यार मोहब्बत बेचा जा रहा है तो जब negatives आती हैं तो फिर आपको उसके दरम्यान का रास्ता निकालना पड़ता है. And therefore, using that technology अगर मैं CBDC को लेकर आऊं कि यार ठीक है again वही बात है वह एक legacy form of currency का वह था central bank का और लोग कहते जी we are going to destroy it but then why can't the central bank sort of redesign itself and bring you all of the sort of bells and whistles of the digital currency but with their own control? उसको मद्देना ज़रखते हुए historically एक बात यह आती है कि central bank is going to print the currency or or or or or is the is a guarantor of currency. Mhmm. But they always kept themselves out of the consumer markets of currency, right? So they had these sort of banks जो कि उस currency को उठाते थे, उसके ऊपर products build करते थे और build करके वह consumer तक जाते थे and and you had that happening. Now with CBDC, when the central bank has all of that control themselves, do they even need banks to do any of that? Do they need कि यार अल्फाला जो है वह लैया में क्योंकि मैं तो स्लामाबाद में है, मैं कराची में head office करके मैं pre print कर रहा हूं तो लैया की management जो है ना वह अल्फाला कर ले. Do they need that when लया का बंदा भी उसी app पर है जिस app पर कराचीगा बनता है. There's no difference or no distance. So there's no essentially requirement for a private entity to provide a service to consumer को तो मैं बात नहीं कर रहा हूं. It's a service to the central bank ना कि यार पैसे उठाओ और पैसों की services जाकर consumer तक पहुंच जाओ. But अब तो वह direct digital पर हो सकती है. So क्या CBT से आने के बाद आपको लगता कि आज से तीस चालीस साल, पचास साल बाद a lot of the current role has been sort of eaten by the by the central bank or the digital central bank. Yeah.

Look, to be honest I am not qualified to answer that question But I will adventure a guess. क्योंकि

sir I feel like right now nobody is qualified. It more like a hunch based on your experience.

So I would I would akin this to healthcare. Alright? यह ऐसे ही है कि हम कहें कि चूंकि अब radiology companies जो है वह software बना सकती हैं जो कि X-ray read कर लें तो शायद दुनिया में radiology labs या hospitals की ज़रूरत नहीं है. You can probably in ten years time your phone will be capable of taking an x-ray probably, right? Hopefully. But you would still need the infrastructure to solutionize that technology. CBDC and the technology that backs CBDC is just the fundamental rails. It's like RAST as well. RAST is not the end solution. Right? रास्त is not CBDC let me be very clear. रास्त is just the rails. उसके ऊपर product बनाना, उसके ऊपर solution बनाना. वह fintech का काम है, वह bank का काम है, वह EMI का काम है, वह किसी भी FI का काम है और वह आपको चाहिए होगा because आपके पास customer की जो customer को understanding है ना, customer की understanding वह front end players के पास है. So मेरा my contention is that banks, fintechs, EMIs, non banking FIs, they will all essentially become front end players and they will have to continue to evolve how they engage the customer and how they service the customer and eventually delight the customer in their financial services usage that is going to determine whether they survive or thrive or perish. Central bank ने आपको rails provide करनी है.

आज आप blockchain ले लो, blockchain चालीस साल पुरानी technology है. ठीक है, अगर मैं इसको यह तो आपने कहा ना अगर आपने private sector के ऊपर काफ़ी ज़्यादा मलबा डाल दिया. अगर मैं Chinese model पर जाऊं और मैं कहता हूं कि यार आपका एक score maintain करता हूं मैं. उसके अंदर मैं feed कर रहा आपका traffic की violations. उसके अंदर मैं feed कर रहा हूं आपका a lot of the data that the government has by the way. Much much better and much smoother data from car ownership, travel to other countries, so on and so forth, bunch of that data. And I begin to maintain a a particular credit score. वह क्या कहता है खिलाता जो China का sort of dystopian वह है. I don't know what the word for it is. वह basically एक sort of आपका let's call it wellness score, right? क्या है? And through that wellness score Very black mirror esque. हां, very black mirror esque. So so based on that I mean if the central bank is giving if they have a rate and the bank adds 2% of that rate, what's the utility of bank adding 2% when that rate can directly go to the consumer?

Yeah. I don't expect the central bank to go into, consumer servicing directly. You don't? Yeah. And I I expect the central bank to give discounts on that rate so that the customer can be serviced by front end customers. अभी भी आप देखें जैसे in the modern in the current day, there are some services that banks provide that service the end user. ECIB is an example. आप जब भी credit card लेने जाते हैं या car loan लेने जाते हैं या कोई भी loan लेने जाते आपका ECIB run होता है. Right. वह service provide to central bank करता है लेकिन उसको apply bank करता है. ठीक है. मेरे ख्याल में यह philosophy change नहीं होगी. Right? थोड़ी बहुत disintermediation होगी जहां पर bank to bank relationship है. जहां पर bank के overnight lending rates की determination है. जहां पर bank की overnight overnight lending rate, lending की arrangements हैं एक दूसरे के साथ शायद वह खत्म हो जाए. Right. And your central bank then becomes through the CBDC the primary lender to banks. Right. उस पैसे को आगे कैसे deploy करना है would still remain with the FIs, banks, fintechs whoever. ठीक है. The front end players. एक और सवाल,

bank cycles जो अभी आपके Monday to Friday वाले हैं और जो nine to five वाले हैं, do you think that's going to change with digitization अभी मतलब you know, you you see the cryptocurrency market it's always moving, Right? But the the stock market and and banks के वह और वह सारा कुछ जो है वह, it's always nine to five. And it doesn't make a lot of sense to me because, theoretically, you don't need a lot of human intervention anymore. Everything is I mean, I my my entire company's financial finances are dealt with a corporate account with standard charter, right? And it's, we've now become digital. We are a digital company, you know? We're putting digital on content on online and and so we work with other people, जिसके लिए हम services and and and products के लिए भी to be varied. Once, कभी बार ऐसे होता है. Remember महारा इमरान खान सबके साथ podcast थी, and it was a third day of ईद. And on the first day of ईद अब podcast थी, podcast थी, जानी भी थी. And we needed these new stands. यह जो आपको नज़र आ रहे हैं ना. So पुराने वाले जो थे वह थोड़े से थोड़ा इफ़ीसे थे. तो I called my vendor and I was like sir खान साहब से मेरी podcast है आप. Figure it out and get me the the stands and he was like sure. उन्होंने वह गए जाकर उन्होंने अपना setup कर दिया. उन्होंने TCS को call की TCS ने कहा कोई issue नहीं थी हम ईद पर काम कर मतलब so everybody is working all throughout and then I it was time for me to pay. And my bank said कि sir अभी तो यह तीन दिन तो ईद की holidays हैं उसके बाद पता नहीं कौन सी bank holiday तो Wednesday को जाकर मिले. वह भी बोला नहीं उस time कि उस time call center भी छुट्टी पर था. वह तो मुझे online गए तो उस पर वह पता statement आ गया. It made no sense to me. We are closed for ईद. Why? Like is someone sitting there and and and saying ok this transaction ok ok sir you are ok ok. It doesn't make any sense right? You have the rails, you have the verification, I have the money in the bank. Check with check with me, take my money out, throw it to whoever you have to throw it to and उसको figure out. So is it a Pakistan problem? Is it a global problem? And do you think that that's going to be solved where I can have, I I I can have a banking experience '24, truly have a banking experience twenty four seven without having to worry about कि यार वह branch like again Standard Charge कहता है जी we are a true digital bank. आपको branch branch जाने की ज़रूरत नहीं है. लेकिन आपका digital जो है वह पांच बजे के बाद नहीं चलेगा फेंकि.

I I don't think it's a Pakistan only problem. Right. यह जहां जहां पर अभी चीज़ें evolve हो रही हैं, maybe this is a problem. This is a problem at least The US solved for maybe thirty years ago. ठीक है, मुझे याद है तीस साल पहले भी, बीस साल पहले. In 2003, I was already on Bank of America's app. App नहीं थी उस web service थी. तो मेरे पास Nokia communicator होता था. I I would go into the browser and I would type bankofamerica.com and on my mobile phone I would open a full desktop app and I would do my transactions. उस वक्त तीन दिन लगते थे. अब वह instant है. In in some cases Pakistan is actually ahead of the market. अच्छा. Because as a consumer अगर आज आप किसी को पैसा भेजना चाहते हैं अगर छोटी amount है आपके stands they look very fancy and expensive so the amount must have been bigger than what is allowed in the IBFT. Right. IBFT तो आप instantly करते हैं, twenty four seven करते हैं और in most cases आप free of cost करते हैं. Right. रास के साथ it's going to be free of cost up to a certain amount. Right. So I was actually amazed when I came to Pakistan in 2012 that I could instantly transfer money to someone else. That's not possible as well? America में this it has become possible in last few years but it wasn't possible in early part of the last decade. तब भी तीन दिन लगते थे unless you were a bank sending money to a Bank of America customer or to the same to a customer in the same bank. अच्छा. So in in some ways पाकिस्तानी financial services is on the bleeding edge but in most ways I would say that we have to catch up और उसकी वजह, उसकी वजह यह है कि हम as a society customer centric नहीं है. हम user experience कुछ मद्दे नज़र रख के कुछ नहीं बनाते. हम in isolation बनाते हैं banking products की अगर हम बात कर लें most banking products are made in air conditioned rooms, people wearing suit and tie. वह कहते यार यह अच्छी लगेगी और फिर वह जाकर customer ढूंढते हैं. Right?

और फिर वह customer को कहते कि तू evolve हो जा मेरी product के लिए, मैं तेरे लिए product नहीं बनाऊंगा. Exactly,

whereas fintechs, most fintechs are taking a different approach where they are going and understanding what the customer pain points are. Right. And in my opinion and we were having this discussion earlier as well. In my opinion हमें fintechs को यह नहीं सोचना चाहिए कि हम उनको हर फ़र्न मौला बनना है. They need to be a niche player. Right. They need to come and fill in the gaps जहां पर banking नहीं चलती. Right. जहां पर banking fail हो जाती और banking mindset fail हो जाता है. Right. And उसके लिए उनको collaborate करना ज़रूरी है. उसके लिए बहुत ज़रूरी है कि they come out of this competing mindset and they look at how they can complement the banks and turn that complementing each other into a collaboration. होगा यह कि अभी आप यह देखेंगे कि fintechs आऐंगे और कहेंगे यार banking की दुनिया में banks को यह नहीं करना आता. I am gonna eat their lunch. Whereas when you start thinking as a competitor, you are also putting yourself in a potentially losing position. Right? So you either win or you capitulate. But when you start to think of yourself as a collaborator, you go and find the cracks that you need to help fill to provide a smoother experience. हमें as a society consumer centric बनना पड़ेगा अगर आप अपने bank की बात करें तो उनको यह सोचना पड़ेगा कि यार businesses 247 चलते हैं. TCS भी 20 47 चलता है, इम्तिहाज भी twenty four seven चलता है, मुज़ामिल's podcast भी twenty four seven चलती है and the needs that need to be fulfilled for these small businesses and big businesses they are not time bound. 95 नहीं हो सकते, right? I have been banking, digital banking in Pakistan for four or five years now. I pay most of my bills at two or three in the morning, right? Or first thing when I wake up, I don't wait for a branch to open up. Why should a business owner have to wait for weekdays and nine to five for the bank to service them? Mhmm. It's easy to create that interface and make it digital, available on your phone or your desktop just like it has been done for consumers. But they are not thinking in that respect. मतलब वही है ना कि देखें एक

confusing सी बात है अब Standard Chartered, IBFT, consumer वाले पर सब कुछ available है. Business account के ऊपर business ने भी बिजली का bill भी दे रहा है. Business ने utilities भी pay करना है उनके लिए available नहीं है. वह बेवकूफ होंगे ना cheque book निकालें. फिर वह जाए bank से जाए cash निकालें. फिर मतलब it it makes no sense. Is there nobody sitting there and thinking कि there are gaps here where you can begin to digitize these areas and and and nobody is unfortunately trying to do that. Do you think that's a that's a regulatory problem in some cases also?

यह बात मैं आपको बता दूं कि आपका regulator एक बहुत progressive regulator है. वह शायद time लेते हैं चीज़ को समझने में. लेकिन once they are convinced that this is the right thing to do, they push banks for it. Take an example of रास्त. रास्त is the right thing to do for this economy. They are pushing banks. Some banks are responding, most aren't. Most aren't. वह बस maximum यह है कि push notification डाल दिया and move on. And banks tend to hide behind this जो उन्होंने एक boogie boogie man बनाया हुआ ना central bank में. Banks tend to hide behind this. वह कहते हैं यार हमें regulation ही इजाज़त देती. हालांकि दुनिया जहान के regulator और जहां तक मेरा limited experience है central bank के साथ. अगर आप उनके पास एक नया idea लेकर जाएं और आप कहें मैं यह try करना चाहता हूं, वह आपको उसकी एक limited इजाज़त देंगे. कहें करो. आप इसके results लेकर आओ. हमें समझाओ कि इसको आगे किया जा सकता है. वह effort नहीं डालना चाह रहे वह बोले. हां.

सवाल है. आपने आपने Pakistan की दो जो legacy fintechs हैं. Fintechs की भी legacy यह गा चुकी है. दो legacy fintechs के साथ आपने essentially काम किया हुआ है. Yeah. मैं जब इनको देखता हूं ना Pakistan ने बड़ा it was doubted कि यार these are two are going to revolutionize. दिमाग़ में क्या था? वह यह था कि यार brick and mortar है. Brick and mortar वालों की cost overrun इतना ज़्यादा है कि वह एक account खोलते हुए तो cost of acquisition for that particular customer is so high that they're never going to service your masses, right? So easy पैसा आया और उसने आकर दुनिया बदल किया यार हर चलता फिरता जो है वह OTC और इसके through पैसा move कर सकता है यार. The very least basic use case है. गांव भिजवाना है तो मैं पैसा भिजवा सकता हूं. And then उसी में था कि यही चीज़ convert होगी apps में और eventually जब apps में convert होगी तो Pakistan का हर चलता फिरता बंदा जो है जी वह एक theoretically bank account रख सकता होगा. Unfortunately over time we've we've seen कि उतनी rapid rate of growth नहीं आ सकी. अच्छा आप तो सही रहे अंदर से आए हैं तो आपका एक different एक experience होगा. मैं आपको एक outsider के experience से अगर मैं बताऊं कि मुझे क्या लगा कि क्या हो रहा है. क्योंकि Pakistan में legacy fintechs takeover कर ली primarily by telcos. अच्छा, telcos को जब मैं देखता हूं they're nothing more than cellular marketing companies. ख़म्बे वह eriction लगा रहा है. जो उसके ऊपर data analytics चल रही है वह IBM कर रहा है. Data के boxes जो हैं वह terror data नहीं दिए हुए हैं. उनका total strength जो आती है वह brand manager से आती है और marketing team से. आती है. साफ सी बात है वह पैसा लगाते हैं वह कर ही रहे हैं कि वह कह रहे कि ठीक है we have the muscle and the money and we're going to get everybody to do whatever their job is and then we're going to milk it and we're going to make lots of money. FinTech is not that industry. Mhmm. Or digital is not that industry. Not at all. Right? That digital is an ever evolving, extremely agile, super efficient, super fast, any word synonymous with that as well. And so मैं आपको एक छोटी सी मिसाब देता हूं. मेरा EasyPaysा में एक account बना दो हज़ार तेरह में मैंने एक Telenor का number निकाला. Fingerprinting and all that jazz सारा कुछ पूरा करने के बाद. दो हज़ार चौदह में इन्होंने कहा जी mobile accounts आ गए SMS भेजिए mobile account खुल जाएगा. मैंने भेज दिया SMS. Somehow between Telenor and EasyPesa my data didn't get transferred. Twenty fourteen से लेकर twenty nineteen तक I was मैं अपना सर खुचा रहा था. क्योंकि every time I would talk about उद्यमयान में app वन गई, सारा कुछ हो गया. मैं जब भी उस पर जाता था वह कहते थे जी आपका तो data ही नहीं. Fingerprint तो बहुत दूर की बात है we don't even know कि इस number पर जो account खुला हुआ है उसका नाम क्या है? मैंने कहा यह कैसे मुमकिन हो सकता है चाहे वैसे इसी meanwhile मेरे brother in law got into that company मैंने अंदर से भी करवाने की कोशिश की. उन्होंने कहा हमने ticket ticket खोल लिया तो यार नहीं हो सकता. यह हो ही नहीं सकता. अब मैं मेरा background data analytics का है. And and and interesting बात यह है. मैं देखिए इस बार project पर तेलौर में काम ही किया हुआ है as a consultant. मेरे date was mind boggling कि यार, you as a company, like how can you not solve a problem? Unless you don't have full control over it, right? Unless you Or if you don't want to. Some, हां, either you don't want to or some engineer came in, built a built a closed up engine for you and said कि यार इस engineओं कभी खोली ना और बचलाता नहीं. Yeah. और engine अगर overheat हो गया तो आप आप साल को जा रहे कि यार मैं क्या करूं क्योंकि मुझे तो पता ही नहीं engine साथ करना क्या है. करना क्या था? वह उस problem को solve करना जो हमें लगता है, हमें जो problem solve करवानी है. So I started pinning a lot of my hopes in these sort of new age companies जिनके vertically integrated थी and were basically technology companies and saying कि मतलब product जो है वह उस product पर कहां पर? सादा pay, नया pay, so on and so forth. The unfortunate bit has been two two two things. First कि इनके पास most of these obviously do not have the muscle to get a banking license and so the the the the wallet size is so small कि it's just literally वह यही है. Again वह wallet की तरह ही है कि it's one thing that you can have but it's not going to be digital payment as a lifetime. Right? So if I go to सादा pay the limits for most of the people मैं तो चलो बिल्कुल I think सादा pay के पास तो यह भी नहीं है कि मैं बढ़ा दूं. तो वह limits इतनी छोटी और irrelevant है कि मैं तो दूर की बात है मेरे जो helping staff है वह भी exceed कर जाएगा उसको between sending and receiving. तो either he has a range of five different apps जिसमें वह इधर से भी कर रहा फिर उधर से भी which is an excruciating stupid experience. Doesn't make any sense. And so you're stuck in a chicken and egg where the regulator is saying कि ठीक है, हम तो एक x amount of licenses देंगे. License खुलता नहीं है तो वह बड़ा मगर में जाकर खलीदकर उसको hold करता है और उस license का बेड़ा गर्ग कर रहा है ऐसा अच्छी बात है. और जो नया player है वह does not have the opportunity to be able to go for it. Again, मैं तो अपनी frustration नहीं कह रहा हूं but the question here is, how do we tap into the the masses? How do we ensure कि ठेले वाला भी QR लेगा? मैं अपने driver को या अपने cook को जो है वह direct bank to bank transfer करूंगा. मुझे cash देने की ज़रूरत नहीं पड़ेगी. और उस cash के ऊपर भी मैं अपने economy में local चलाऊं. Right? It has to be a fluent ecosystem where everybody can move the money and the cost of movement is minimized. How do we go there? Because the fact is I I I've been very hopeful but more and more hopeless recently because realistic उसका outcome solution नज़र नहीं आ रहा मुझे. So I think

इसको let's peel this onion a little bit, right? सबसे पहले तो you are absolutely right. Telcos will have a very hard time getting into the financial services space. Truly a financial services space. अभी जो मैं Pakistan में देखता हूं, I was recently involved with one, I was involved with one a long time ago. I have seen the space evolve from an SMS to an app but the mindset has not changed. The mindset still is कि यार अपना जो हमने monthly active user का number है ना उसको कैसे दिखाना है? चाहे आप उसके लिए you know, बिला बजा का पैसा फेंके और monthly active user लेकर आए. Somehow that promise that you have made of scale you have to show. Whereas financial services के अंदर engagement matters more than being a monthly active user, right? For you to be able to pay all of your bills and for you to be able to have all of your financial needs met friction, in a friction free manner is what makes a financial services successful. Telco mindset change होने की ज़रूरत है. Brett King एक बड़ी मज़े की बात करता है. वह कहता है यार जब आप किसी problem को solve करने जाते हैं ना आप first principles approach लेते हैं. आप you break the problem down to its fundamentals and then you address the fundamentals that are causing that problem to exist in the first place. जब telcos इस business में आए तो that was a me too thing. They just wanted to be in it because उन्होंने देखा है जी सफारी कौम कर रहा है M पैसा तो कौन सी ऐसी गिदर सिंह योगी जो करेंगे हम भी कर लेंगे. Whereas, सफारी कौम actually built it first principles. They built it from the fundamentals up और उन्होंने कहा उन्होंने cash की problem को solve करने के लिए उन्होंने एक service बनाई जहां पर लोग air time एक दूसरे को भेज सकते थे. हमने Pakistan में regulation does not allow you to send air time. So you actually send money, right? हमने वही principle लिया और हमने कहा यार यह money पर apply करते हैं doesn't happen, doesn't work that way. Whereas developing the ecosystem requires that you get all parties to be on that that fundamental system. वह इन्होंने नहीं किया. उन्होंने अपने customer को समझा ही नहीं. उन्होंने कहा यार जो card खरीदता है ना वह account खोल लेगा. In most cases what's happening is when you go to buy a sim, your mobile account gets opened up and you don't even know. Right? आपको तो आपका case दूसरा था उन्होंने आपकी सारी information loose कर दी. There are people उनके mobile account खुले में जब वह अपना mobile account खुलवाने जाते हैं तो उनको पता चला वह already खुला हुआ है because somebody had to meet a target because they get a commission on it. अब हो ये रहा है कि telcos are subsidizing their telco business by paying their franchisees commissions from for the financial services business. तो उन्होंने franchisee को ये incentivize किया गया यार तुम तुमने जो भी करना है ना numbers लेकर आओ and we will pay you commission on the numbers. As much as 30% of franchisees commission comes from the financial services business whereas financial services को कोई incentive नहीं है उन लोगों को pay करने का. आपकी जो problem आगे जाकर होगी वह यह है कि इन इन fintechs ने जो दो हमारी बड़ी हैं उन्होंने cash in funnel अभी तक resolve नहीं किया. Digital business चलाने के लिए digital cash होना चाहिए ना. If somebody is still taking money out of your wallet to buy groceries or buy other things then you are not a digital business. You are just a hoarder of a custodian of their money for a very short period of time. Cash and funnel resolve करने के लिए इनको एक commission model change करना पड़ेगा. I keep having these discussions in Tanzania, in गाना, Cambodia, Colombia. There are models where the central bank actually subsidized the cash and commission and cash out पर कोई commission नहीं है. So create that funnel that gets you to digitize cash and then get merchants where people are buying things to start to accept digital digital cash. जब आपकी merchant payments रास्त में होंगी, जब merchant free payments ले सकेगा that is going to solve a big problem. Right? But now these telco owned fintechs have becomes too big, so big that they become too big to fail. तो अब what they do is they dangle the sword over the central banks head or you know the financial services industries head by saying कि यार अगर आप यह नहीं करेंगे तो हम agents नहीं बढ़ाएंगे या अगर आप हमें यह मरात नहीं देंगे तो हम यह नहीं करेंगे and that is causing, that is muddying the waters quite a bit. I have, I have very little hope having seen what I, what I saw in both the telcos. I have very little hope that unless they change their thinking and unless they change the way they approach their business by truly being a financial service business, by understanding you as their customer, by understanding me as their customer and the 220,000,000 पाकिस्तानी as their customer, it is only then that they are able to build a business that's first principles.

That's based on first principles. अभी वह thinking नहीं है. Do you think the new players are gonna be able to do that? Do you have any hopes from नेहा or साधा pay or

you know a lot of these new folks? I would like to see नेहा pay and साधा pay take their rightful position as a digital bank in the coming years. I know Brandon really well. I know दानिश really well. I I consider them true visionaries and torch bearers of digital financial services. वह और जो आपके पांच digital bank licenses आऐंगे इंशालाह, that stands to be a game changer for SMEs, for consumers. क्योंकि SMEs को अभी तो कोई भी नहीं पूछता. They are the step child of our economy. हम उनको इसलिए नहीं पूछते क्योंकि हमारा data उनका data नहीं है और हम उनको service करना ही नहीं चाहते because it takes a lot of time to understand the different verticals and SMEs. So I expect these digital banks including the Niapays and Saadhapays of the world to really get in the into the hearts and minds of their customers and understand कि उनको चाहिए क्या?

What do they want and what do they need? You spoke about data कि उनके पास data नहीं है. As a consumer, when I look at this thing तो मुझे तो, मैं तो पत्थरों उठाता हूं तो मुझे data generate होता नज़र आ रहा है आजकल, right? And I'm not even talking about very sort of post modern businesses के मैं जाकर consumer बोले यार आप तो पढ़े लिखे आदमी हो आपका data दो जाहिर है पढ़ा हुआ है but वह जो करियाने की दुकान चला रहा है. But then I see क्या है retailer बना रहे उसका data. Yeah. बाज़ार बना रहा है उसका data and so somewhere or the other there is one touch point or another जहां पर data generate हो रहा है. वह चाहे financial का हो, I mean वह एक एक एक hygiene के ऊपर आप discuss कर सकते कि उसके digital hygiene के साथ तक है या नहीं है. कितना ज़्यादा वह data segmented है, cleansed है. But the fact is कि data is now being created. But what I see is data being wasted, aggressively wasted primarily because Pakistan में हर बंदा एक silo में मैं trust नहीं कर सकता. मैं literally मैंने ना उनसे बात की, retailer वाली team से बात की, मैंने बात की एक और वह साहब बड़े तो मैंने देखा मैंने कहा यार पहले तो पांच सौ तो पहले words पढ़े market के अंदर. फिर पांच सौ बंदा learning की services offer करना शुरू कर देगा. बाद हर बंदे ने हर चीज़ ख़ुद ही करनी है. Yeah. You know है ना? No hate to them these guys are doing some remarkable work. But at what point can we either either of two things? Again, मैं कुल सुम्ला खानी वाली invoke करूंगा. Either of the two things can happen. Right? Either we can say कि यार, we begin to trust each other. You do what you're doing, and maybe I'll focus on the on the lending side of things. Actually, three three things हो सकती है. Either you can be collaborative with the video data. I'm not saying Pakistan में फिर वह सार्निलों कहेंगे यार data जो है वह आपका protected है. मैं कोई यह थोड़ी कह रहा कि as a res consumer का पूरा उठावा लाकर फेंक दो. आप crunch करो, profile बनाओ, profile आकर market में share कर दो. और rather create a model where the consumer could benefit from that as well. दूसरा, दरमियान में कोई player आता है और वह आकर कहता है कि यार मैं वह वन जाता हूं. What you might call it? Escrow, data escrow. Right? So you give some, take some. So it's not open for everyone. जितनी आप market के अंदर, जितनी आप utility provide कर रहे हैं. So if I, if you get something from me and I get something from you, we both can have some sort of an exchange. Mhmm. And so to be very honest, the pivot that I see from Mastercard in a lot of areas मुझे यही नज़र आ रहा है कि वह services में आए हैं suggesting कि उन्होंने कहा कि यार ठीक है, पहले आप पैसे की layer थे, अब आप data की layer वन जाओ और उस data की layer में आप additional security भी provide कर दो, उसमें आप दस और services provide कर सकते तीसरा, मुझे purely like मुझे Pakistan में everybody wants an IT services business that is exporting or wants to create a product business that is essentially an op op heavy airlift. But nobody wants to really do this. यह बड़ी छोटी basic services की problem है, right? कि why does every single startup need to hire needs to hire a data scientist? Whereas one startup can hire a bunch of these experts and really be king while servicing 50 different startups essentially. But मुझे लगता है कि जब तक यह वाला अभी हम phase one में हैं जहां पर हर बंदे ने एक एक initial and it's it's good that we've gone come here but इससे आगे जब तक हम sort of consolidation में नहीं जाएंगे तो mergers होंगे, acquisitions होंगी या दरमियान में एक collaborative environment आएगा through one of these different routes जिसमें you will have to begin to trust each other not thinking कि यार अगर मैंने उसको share कर दिया तो मैं तो मर जाऊंगा और वह बहुत बड़ा मक़र्मज़ वन जाएगा. ना वह वन सकता है, ना आप वन सकते हैं. In fact पूरी space grow कर सकती है. What are your thoughts on that? देखिए सबसे पहले तो

यह game isolation में खेलने वाली है ही नहीं. ठीक है? Data aggregation and data sharing की success हमने दुनिया में देखना शुरू कर दिया है. Europe में open banking के through, open API के through data अब दस बारह साल से share हो रहा है. Effectively सात आठ साल से share हो रहा है and that that is where the evolution is as well. जहां जब मैं बात कर रहा था पहले the four C's of ecosystem development if you will. The competing mindset has to be put aside. We have to understand कि देखिए आप भी अकेले कुल नहीं है अगर आप एक data aggregator हैं. You have gaps. Who's gonna help you fill those gaps? Players who are playing in that space where where you're not capturing that data and then you complement them by providing them the data that that you have. Right. So you have start to create a fuller picture of the customers that you are trying to service. So you are absolutely right. यह next evolution है. Collaboration होना ज़रूरी है. So collaboration and complementing are the second and third sees of that four sees of ecosystem development. क्या आपने पहले समझा कि आप कैसे दूसरे को complement कैसे करते हैं? फिर आपने सोचा कि यार आप collaborate कैसे करेंगे? और अगर आप इन तीनों c's में कहीं पर भी अपने आप को नहीं देखते तो eventually what will happen? You will either capitulate to the incumbents or you will capitulate to the problem or you will capitulate to somebody who is trying to solve this problem in a very botched manner because you haven't approached the problem holistically. So before you get to that four c of ecosystem development जहां पर capitulation हो और consolidation हो you really have to find avenues to figure out कि as a fintech अगर हम दस्तगीरी example ले लेते हैं for example क्या B2B business है उसके अंदर हमारे पास कुछ data है. Bank इसी business को serve करता होगा किसी तरह से उनका data पकड़ो. Telco इसको serve करता होगा उनका data पकड़ो. Let's create a picture that we can all share. Right? इसके अंदर data only players भी आकर खेल सकते हैं by the way. Right? जिनका काम ही सिर्फ यह है कि वह data aggregation करें. जिनका काम ही है कि वह data की एक exchange वन जाए. यहां से anonymize data लिया, यहां पर दिया, यहां से वह analytics ली, यहां पर दी. You are right big players the incumbents international incumbents are thinking along those lines लेकिन we need local solutions because local market contextualization के लिए बहुत ज़रूरी है कि हम local data को समझे. Big players don't really understand local data they will need partners who can help them understand that local data as well. So, yes it is a data play but in the absence of those handshakes, in the absence of you wanting to work with each other, you would find that you will never be able to service the market that you want to in the way, in the manner that you want to. So मेरा तो एक ही गरदान है और यह है कि for all the fintech players, for all the startups, for all the future billionaires, you can only get there if you decide to collaborate with other players in the same space and you will find that it will benefit both of you.

Make sense. अगर मैं आपसे यह पूछूं कि जब हम बात करते हैं fintech की, right? जाहिर है as a as as consumers आपने बोला कि cash out के ऊपर भी commission नहीं होना चाहिए, makes sense. उसके ऊपर commission देना completely illogical है और और और I think a large part of currency and digital circulation के अंदर definitely मैं कहूंगा regulator not as much but maybe government कुमते वक़्त जो भी होगी अभी वह recently हमने देखा credit card के ऊपर जो है जी 1% POS लग गया, charge लग गया. These are really stupid policies that are disincentivizing digital payments when in actuality the more payments are done digitally, the the the amount of problems that the governments can solve from transparency, tax collection standpoint and so on and so forth and data gathering as well. So government का तो एक एक point के ऊपर वह role है. But अगर मैं generally पूछूं कि यार ठीक है, easy पैसा है या jazz cash है. या सादा pay. सादा pay कहते हैं सादा pay वाले साहब ने उस दिन आकर बोला उन्होंने कहा कि यार पैसे transfer पर कोई fee नहीं है. Debit card के ऊपर कोई fee नहीं है. Transaction के ऊपर कोई feature होगा transaction मान लिया उसने, उससे कमा लिया merchant की उससे. कुछ amount उसके पास आ गई. But just the amount of players that exist in the market honestly यह मुझे आपको पता नहीं Froyo वाली explosion explosion याद ही नहीं याद Pakistan में. दुनिया में भी हुई थी Pakistan में भी हुई थी कि एक दुकान खुली बड़ा मज़ा आया, सौ दुकानें खुल गईं. मेरी गाड़ी चलाने वाली company का भी wallet आ गया है, मेरे खाना delivery वाली का भी wallet मतलब it's just an explosion of wallet and it's Because fintech is not paytech.

Right? Everybody is trying to solve the same problem and you will start to see consolidation in this space in my opinion. FinTech बहुत बड़ी दुनिया है. इस वक्त तक हमने RegTech application of AI and compliance नहीं देखा. हमने lend tech नहीं देखा. हमने अभी तक Pakistan के अंदर

different aspects of financial services नहीं देखी. Investment में थोड़ा बहुत काम हो रहा है लेकिन देखिए financial services is not just me going and making a payment. So that's what I am saying ना कि पहला तो मुझे यह बताएं कि एक तो what are the मैं बहुत सारे हैं hundreds होंगे probably but what are some of the major areas of growth जो आपको नज़र आता है जहां पर जहां पर काम हो रहा है या नहीं हो रहा? एक तो यह. दूसरा यह कि where is the money? Like, it's definitely not in because जब हम banks की बात करते हैं दस सवाल, इस सवाल को पूछने का मक़सद मेरा ख़ासकर यह है कि जब मैं लोगों से पूछता हूं ना कि banks क्यों Pakistan में इतने inefficient हैं? तो वह यह कहते हैं कि यार जब banks का सारा का सारा पैसा T bill से वन जाएगा तो वह किसी को क्यों क्यों ख़वारी करके किसी को loan देंगे? क्यों ख़वारी करके वह product बनाएंगे? जब banks को जो आप उनकी वह barriers हैं ना कि यार यह बंदा जो है नज़र आ रहा है शक्ल से कि यह दस लाख रुपया या at least x amount रखेगा जिससे हमने इतना पैसा कमाना है उसको वह service करते हैं बाकी सबको वह disregard कर देते हैं. तो यह आज जितना भी हम गुणगाल हैं कि Fintech is going to solve all all those problems वह आपने कहा कि क्या है first fundamental rule वाला जो है कि मैं अगर उसमें जाकर figure out करने की wish wish wish करूं तो मैं उनका एक incentive देखना चाहूंगा ताकि उससे मैं एक picture paint कर सकता हूं कि when all of this is said and done and all the मंजन and the marketing copyrights are are are site, वह क्या actual outcome मैं expect कर सकता हूं? Trying to understand कि यार एक average consumer से यह पैसा क्या यह payment transfers के ऊपर पैसे कमा रहे हैं? क्या यह float पर पैसे कमा रहे हैं? क्या यह lending पर पैसे कमा रहे हैं? Where is the money really?

So, the money is in several pockets. It's not just in lending. Lending में there is money, yes, but there is also a lot of potential to be a predatory lender. तो lending में पैसा है, deposits में शायद पैसा है because you can earn float. Payments में अंकड़ी पैसा ग़ायब हो जाएगा. ठीक है, completely ग़ायब हो जाएगा. Yes, I I expect revenue from payments going down. जहां पर मुझे fintechs नज़र नहीं आ रही. वह वह हैं जो कि banks को अपनी services provide करती हैं. No, every bank wants to be digital. But no no bank is really working on digitizing the products and solutions that they have based on customer needs. और अगर आपको front end solution provider बनना है, customer तक जाना है तो आपको regulation को adhere करना होगा, license लेना होगा. I don't see entities who are building white label digital solutions for banks. I don't see entities that are bringing ideas that they can leverage, for which they can leverage the banks That's like because there is a lack of

consumer trying to build products for the banks or there is a lack of demand from the bank side where they are like यार why? मैं HBL हूं. तुम छोटे startup आकर मुझे बताओगे कि मैंने किस तरह digitize. Alexa, there is that sort of a set legacy mentality as well ना कि यार या तो मैं जब buyout करके मैं अपनी team में integrate कर लूंगा और फिर मुझे पता है मैंने किस तरह से काम करना है. Having worked with HPL, I can tell you this. जब हमने chatbot बनाना था, we didn't make it ourselves. We actually went to the market and we got them to make it for us And that entity that made the chatbot made money. No, but there's a difference. एक ही एक बात यह है कि यार मैं किसी से service लेकर मैं कोई product बनवा रहा हूं. जो कि मैं उससे इस वजह से agree नहीं करता modern economy के अंदर because products, digital products are again like I said constantly improving, right? And so जब आप third party के पास जाते हो तो more often than not आपका downtime जो जो apps में मसला आता है कि यार फर्श of the month choke हो रही है. फिर वह दो तीन साल का रोने रोलाने के बाद फिर finally एक दिन या तीन दिन के लिए गायब होकर फिर upgrade आता है. वही चीज़ in house can do a much better job. If you wanna be a technology company, you'll be a technology company. You don't market it, right? मैं ज़्यादा यह कह रहा हूं कि what if, for example, banks do their legacy business? They don't get insecure and say कि यार यह इसकी छोटी सी मिसाल इस तरह है. जब बहुत सारी industries में आपने publishing में काम किया आपको याद होगा जब bus feed आया था तो पूरी industry का यह था कि भाई हम तो ख़त्म हो गए. And the fact is कि आज दस साल बाद bus feed losses में उतने ही losses में और New York Times is New York Times. Yeah. Right? एक certain level of confidence digital ने बहुत सारे लोगों को insecure किया. अच्छा यही बात हुई जब हम जैसे आए ना तो TV वालों को लगा कि यार यह तो क्या हो गया? और the fact is कि आप मेरा काम नहीं कर सकते. Agreed. Right? क्योंकि मेरे consumer को मैं भी चाहिए और आप भी चाहिए. Yeah. Similarly, it's it's so when I say कि यार bank को product kit support छोटी सी मसला है. Bank कहता है कि यार मैं offer करता हूं mutual funds. ठीक है? अब वह mutual funds offer कर रहा है तो मुझे बजाय इसके कि मिज़ान Bank अपने mutual funds के लिए एक third party consulting company को hire करके अपने लिए एक ऐसी mutual funds की app बना दे जिसके through mutual funds को procure करना बड़ा आसान है. Why don't मेदान bank go to mutual plus third party startup and integrate with them so that they can do what they do and आख़िर में mutual fund वह नहीं कर सकता उसके पास license नहीं है. Yeah. और mutual funds जो manage करना वह मैं करूंगा. Yeah. क्योंकि मेरा core business वह है. मुझे क्या ज़रूरत है कि मैं उसके front end user interface के अंदर घुसूं और उसकी app experience में घुसूं और उन चार चीज़ों में घुसूं जिसमें मेरा I don't have the expertise in. Yeah. उसमें मुझे लगता है कि banks generally are not very open to opening up.

You are right. Banks are starting to learn that lesson. Right? But they are also realizing कि यार वह सब कुछ कुछ खुद नहीं कर सकते. I know at least six banks जो पिछले चार साल से digital lending पर काम कर रहे हैं. It's not rocket science. You know, it's it's not like कि उनको अपने data scientist full time लगाकर एक algorithm बनाना है. It's very simple. लेकिन a company like LFD for example जो कि जिसका काम है data analytics का वह आकर वही काम उनके लिए ज़्यादा बेहतर ज़्यादा जल्दी कर सकती है. But they are not being let in and other data companies. They are not being let in because every bank now wants to have their own data scientist team. Data scientist है नहीं मुल्क में आप हर कोई data scientist hire करना चाह रहा है. So what's happening is कि जो एक data scientist alphala के साथ काम शुरू करता है वह कर सकते एक कहावत है ना जिसका काम उसी को सांझे. We cannot continue to try to build walled gardens. हम बहुत कोशिश कर चुके हैं हमने दस साल लगा दिए. मैं कहा मैं दस साल से देख रहा हूं that we have been trying to build walled gardens in this country especially in the financial services space. हमें open spaces create करनी है जहां पर collaboration हो और जहां जो आपने बात की किया है make something that somebody else is already making when you can partner with them and give them the platform. जो customer base आपके पास है उसके पास नहीं है लेकिन जो product उसके पास है वह आपके पास नहीं है. जो regulation की understanding आपके पास है वह fintech के पास नहीं है. जो trust आपके पास है वह fintech के पास नहीं है. तो अपना trust अपनी regulation की understanding अपने customer base खोलो उनकी product, उनकी innovation, उनकी digitization को पकड़ो और make something that works for your customer that understands the customer that services the customer. यह बात बहुत ज़रूरी है समझना. दुनिया trial and error से समझ गई है. Pakistan में यह understanding banks में आने की अभी ज़रूरत है. यह understanding आइश्ता आइश्ता आएगी. Every bank wants to go digital. They don't know how to. Every fintech wants to have a large customer base. They don't have the access. So I see a big open ground जहां पर आप collaborate करके बहुत कुछ बना सकते हैं. अच्छा, we are at the one hour thirty minute mark

and so I am going to sort of begin to wrap this up. There is one question and I have I have sort of thrown against here and there but मैं चाहता हूं कि आप उसको directly tap करें. Before starting, you were mentioning something similar about this as well. जब हम बात करते हैं, again, मैंने इसमें कहा कि देखें, जो जो जो जो छोटा customer है ना उसको digital पर लाना की कोई ज़्यादा incentivization नहीं है ना capitalist setup for for any, you know, service like any bank, any fintech or whatever. क्योंकि they don't expect कि उससे वह बहुत ज़्यादा पैसे कमाएंगे. हां, अगर वह इतना ज़्यादा काम को इतना इतना हम economy of scale पर चले जाएं कि जो process of onboarding them and keeping them as one entity amongst 20,000,000 entities and based the the entirety of all of them ends up making some money, sure हम उस पर जा सकते हैं. And so I spoke to someone from the अभी team and they mentioned कि यार हमारा सारा जो game है वह है ही यह कि जितना ज़्यादा बंदा होगा उतना क्योंकि उनका यह है कि वह basically आपको credit के ऊपर आपको आपकी तनख़्वाद दे देते हैं. Earn wage access. Earn wage access. And वह उसके ऊपर वह तो तो उनकी जो percentage जो जा रही थी वह बड़ी Right? जो उसको essentially credit card है ना वह लेकिन उसके ऊपर वह ढाई percent दे रहा है महीने के. जो कि साल के again बार बार निकालने के बाद साल के उसके बीस पच्चीस पच्चीस percent रुपए वह पहुंच गए. तो But again, lending में आप फिर भी वह कर सकते हो. बहुत सारे और cases में नहीं है. तो एक तो सवाल again मेरे लिए यही आता है कि what is the financial incentive for any company to be looking at the masses and until and unless masses. मैं masses अभी गांव की बात नहीं कर रहा. मैं कह रहा हूं यार आप KLI के अंदर ही ना मेरा हर top to bottom across class lines हर बाद digital पर आ जाए. 70% of your GDP is KLI, Right? आप वह कर लें बाकी तो सब trickle पर वैसे ही हो जाएगा कि यार जो स्लाहाबाद में जो बंदा रह रहा वह पीछे गांव वाले को भी बोलेगा यार तू mobile app डाल लें. तो उसको service करने के लिए पहला तो financial incentive क्या है potential? को तो यह भी नहीं पता और doctor साहब और doctor साहब होते हैं और quacks के पास जा रहा है वह. Honest to god. मतलब I my, one of my, someone who works for me, she came to me one day and she was like कि my nephew wants to get a job. तो मैंने कहा किस किस्म की job? तो उन्होंने कहा कि office boy की job लग जाए. तो मैंने कहा अच्छे से पहले उनका क्या experience था? तो उन्होंने कहा उससे पहले वह doctor थे. मैं बड़ा shock हुआ मैंने कहा क्या मतलब? Like, is this conversation? Right? So, I was like, what? What do you mean? हां, वह एक doctor से आपके साथ है. तो पांच साल उन्होंने clinic बना ली और वह जो है ना हमारे इलाके में लोगों को इलाज करते थे.

It's quite a steep jump तो

that is that is भूल गया मैंने इससे पहले बात क्या बोली थी कि how do you include the masks? हां and so मरहम वाले साहब को मैंने यही बोला मैंने कहा कि you know like And अगर मैं Western और Eastern को का difference देखूं in terms of services तो West has a lot of educated users and so they put it out there in front of you. Facebook, Instagram, whatever, you know, the icons are very there and पाकिस्तानी क्योंकि Western उसको देखते हैं, उसी से इनकारिज होते हैं. तो वह उसकी वजह से वह उस तरह के interfaces बना रहे हैं, उस तरह के design elements बना रहे हैं. उज़री में जब जाता हूं जाकर मैं China को देखता हूं and China has been fairly remarkable at reaching the masses. चाहे आप TikTok को उठा लें, चाहे आप Streamकर को उठा लें, Beagle Life को उठा लें, चाहे आप Predatory Lone Shark apps को उठा लें. आपने I don't know उसको follow किया नहीं किया recent times के ऊपर ऐसी apps आई हैं जो कि चलता फिरता हर बंदा इस्तेमाल कर रहा है पता लग रहा जी पीछे पड़ गए हैं वह. दस हज़ार रुपया loan लिया, महीने के अंदर बीस पच्चीस हज़ार रुपया निकाल लिया. It's under black mark on the evolution of fintech in parts. Absolutely. But the fact is what while you have to control them and while you have to talk about them कि यह कितना बुरा कर रहे हैं you also have to really see कि यार मैं एक legitimate service offer कर रहा था, मेरे पास तो कोई आ नहीं रहा था और इनके पास कैसे चला गया consumer? There is something in the user experience that the Chinese understand. You know where where it's so plug and play, it's so simple, the language is simple. How can you sell a lending product which is a very complicated product at exuberant rates

to someone who can't even read and write? Yeah. तो again, there's this probably like 18 questions packed in that. So I will I will try to answer as many of them without letting my ADHD get the best of me. तो सबसे पहले तो यह कि देखिए it starts and ends with the user. हमने in an effort to make super app हमने सब कुछ एक हर app में डालना शुरू कर दिया ना. हर एक को सब कुछ नहीं चाहिए. If a person is coming to me for financial services especially if that person is just starting out in the financial services space when they are just starting a relationship तो वह यह नहीं चाहते कि आप हर चीज़ों पर टोकते हैं. It's like you know financial services is kind of like dating. You have to assess the person out. You have to understand कि उनकी needs क्या है? And build that trust also. And build that trust. And that trust comes from constant engagement. Right. Constant engagement आती है use cases से. सबसे आसान use case जहां पर हमें traction नज़र आई Pakistan में वह है mobile top up. Right? Whereas till very recently अगर आपने mobile top up की option ढूंढनी होना किसी app में तो आप navigation में ही आठ नौ clicks waste कर चुके होते थे. अब थोड़ी चीज़ समझ आई है and now mobile top up is front and center because that's number one use case for all fintechs. जाकर prepaid का bill pay करना postpaid जो कि बहुत कम है उसका bill pay करना है. Similarly bill payment. तो इसको आप बहुत basic करते हैं. Why go beyond four five tiles than what a person needs? Rural areas में उनको क्या चाहिए? बहुत से लोग जो हैं वह अहसास beneficiaries हैं. Right? So give them an option to not be taken advantage of at the ATM. Yeah. And create financial education, create financial awareness, create financial savvy. उनको समझाओ कि यार कर्जा लेने का मतलब क्या है? You know पैसे खर्च करने का responsible तरीका क्या है? I use an app called Sofy. Sofy has a wonderful experience because it educates me. As I am doing something it educates me about my credit, it educates me about the investments I want to make, educates me about the market news that is happening. But then again that's made for the educated customer. For the uneducated customer उनको basic चीज़ समझाना कि यार ATM का debit card का इस्तेमाल खाली ATM पर नहीं है. उससे आप ration भी ले सकते हैं. Right? फिर ration वाले को जाकर enable करना कि वह app से पैसे ले सके ताकि वह जाकर वह experience कर सकें. यह सब responsibility हमारे ऊपर. हम फ़ौरन सोचते हैं end में यार हम पैसे से कैसे बनाएं? हमें पहले ecosystem create करना है. इसके अंदर government का भी थोड़ा सा rule है because government is the largest collector of payments and the largest distributor of payments. Salaries के बाद में, beneficial, you know social safety net के बाद में उनको यह चीज़ें digitize करनी पड़ेंगी. Social safety net payments should not be given out in cash.

It should be given out in the form of money in your wallet that you can go and use at a utility store or you can use to buy a Yeah, like I found it very interesting that they gave out यह एहसास का जब यह मसला आ रहा था तो उन्होंने कहा कि जी आपको subsidy मिलेगी तो उन्होंने cards दे दिए उठाकर. Like why didn't, why couldn't you do an app thing where you you can just क्योंकि app के अंदर आपका data भी सारा रहा है, verification भी सारी है. Governments can really encourage people कि वह किसी और चीज़ के लिए करें या ना करें. जिस चीज़ के लिए उनको free money मिल रहा उसके लिए तो वह करेंगे ही ना. और आप देख लें toll पर देख लें ना. जहां पर उन्होंने holistic thinking लेकर आए and this is something that

Mastercard initiated in Pakistan. Toll पर लेकर आए अब MTAG पर आते जाते लोग digitally pay करते हैं either through JazzCash or through their Mastercard instruments. Right. So you have to think about the problem holistically and you have to think about how will you engage. जहां मैं Chinese की बात की है ना शुरू user से करता है. वह कहता है यार यह how do I get TikTok की अगर हम बात करें how do I get a person to be addicted to the scroll? Yeah. Right? क्या मैं करूं तीन second सात second ज़्यादा का किसी का attention span नहीं है तो mode वह mode ही ऐसा दो कि वह लोग उससे addicted हो जाए. You have to create that addiction and payment as well but in a good way. Not necessarily in a bad you know useless content.

But see that's the thing. It's not a lot of people see TikTok की rise as seven to ten seconds with you. The fact is TikTok now has, for some people, an option of up to thirty minutes. For most people, an option of up to ten minutes, And you're beginning to see a lot of longer formats of content there as well. So what we what we've realized is que the the the five to seven minutes was seconds five to seven seconds was a means to an end. It wasn't the end. Consumers are ready to watch longer videos as well. जब आप TikTok को really analyze करते हैं ना, तो TikTok का बड़ा एक एक basic सा feature है. Mhmm. और वह यह है कि आज अभी इसी वक़्त अगर आप Instagram पहली दफ़ा download करें और आप TikTok पहली दफ़ा download करें. जब आप Instagram download करते हैं ना तो एक आपके पास एक wall आती है और उस wall के अंदर लिखा आता है नया account बनाना नहीं बनाना है और जब आप कहते हो कि मैंने बनाना है तो आप उस पर click करते हो तो दस options आती हैं. उन options के through maneuver करते कराते हैं. जब आप finally अपने account में enter होते हो, तो एक बहुत ही simple तरीके से लिखा हुआ था कि यार यह चार पांच options हैं, यह मैं तो मैं recommend कर रहा हूं. So search became prime and everything else came after that. TikTok ने क्या किया कि TikTok ने कहा कि यार वह था नए user के लिए जो दुनिया में पिछले दस साल में बहुत ज़्यादा नया user internet के ऊपर आया. उसको तो पता ही नहीं था कि वह क्या चाहता है. उस आप यही चीज़ मैंने Instagram बताया मैं आप TikTok को बताता हूं आपको. आप TikTok पर जब enter होते हैं ना app खोलते हैं और content आ रहा होता है. Mhmm. Meanwhile पांच आठ दस second के बाद वह आपको एक ping भेजता है. Create an account. अच्छा, उसके बाद फिर क्या होता है कि अगर आप उसकी जब content में आप in होंगे ना तो आपने comment करना है, आपने यह करना है, वह करना While you're browsing and you're learning and you're beginning to identify things that you can do within the app, you're locked out of those things. So, वहां पर जाकर वह आपको कहता है छैर अगर यह कर रहे हैं तुम्हें तो account बना रहो. ठीक हो गया. अब वह आते हैं account बनाने पर. आप अगर TikTok खोले ना आज और जाकर देखें किसी कोई भी मशहूर video चल रही होती है वह आपको most popular दिखा रहा होता इस पर comment section में जाए. 95% of the user accounts that you will find will be like कामरान zero zero zero four seven, user 399928, user 25525. क्या वजह? क्योंकि जब आप जाते हैं और जाकर उसमें जब आप खोलते हैं उसका account बनाने के लिए तो every single option has an option of auto set, auto set username, auto set password, auto set information और दो तीन चीज़ें हैं जहां पर आपको डालनी डालनी है और वह आपसे वह gender का पूछता है, यह पूछता वह drop down के ऊपर है. So it's very easy for UKR. अच्छा यह option है तो उसमें से यही है यह. So that that in itself

is a very interesting observation, right? क्योंकि इसको आप apply कर सकते हैं और यह बात मैंने शायद किसी को आज से चार पांच साल पहले की थी कि banks have to start thinking like content companies. Yeah. How do you create that addiction? Account तो आपने भी बनवाना है. हां. लेकिन why put them through the process of कि यार अपना KYC, ShyC करो. Give them limited use accounts जहां पर वह सिर्फ financial information ले सकें. सिर्फ content consume कर सकें जो कि financial education देता हो and that you can do with रास्त्र day. You can just say कि यार नहीं बनाना account. अच्छा यह video देख लो कि account इस्तेमाल कैसे होता है? Video देख लो about what lending could benefit, how lending could benefit. Financial services are very cumbersome boring thing, right? But you can make it interesting. Especially for the new to bank and new to banking customers. और एक दफा जब हमने content consume कर लिया now they have a desire to do something. You gauge that desire and get them to say कि यार अब तुम ना अगर mobile number डालोगे तो तुम्हारा रास्त पर account automatically खुल जाएगा. आप उससे information in trickles लें, torrents में ना लें. हां, exactly. और हर information के साथ आप उसको incentivize करें. यह हम थोड़ा सा brainstorm कर रहे हैं. यह थोड़ा सा इसको I think we should patent this. You know, the TBT way of opening a bank account but I would say कि हम

we have to create this engagement जहां पर customer को यह ना लगेगा यार यह cumbersome process है. नहीं मैं तो आपको sir यही कह रहा ना मैंने तो मैं आपको बताता हूं मेरे दिमाग में ही कहा था. मैं app खोलूं ना ठीक है? बड़ी छोटी सी I was talking to someone I friend of mine who works in the AI space. I don't know if you've if you've seen but Google का जो personal assistant है which is open to everyone they can use that. वह अब उर्दू proper समझता है with context. तो मैं तो यह कहता हूं कि यार जब मेरा एक app हो, app खुले और उस app के अंदर जो है ना मेरा वह mascot, पैसा man, ठीक है? और पैसा man आता और पैसा पैसा person, right? पैसा person. So पैसा person आता और I कहता है कि यार animation से आती है और and again this is this stems from a lot of what the Chinese have done. They've integrated coins, they've integrated you you you go to a livestream app and and something happened and something happened and suddenly you know you are fully engaged. हालांकि there is it's it's an entirely different product to begin with. So gamification and personal assistance. आपका वह बंदा आता है वह आपको अकेले verbally बताते हैं. कोई text नहीं होता वह आपको verbally बताते हैं कि thank you for coming in. आप आ गए हो, यह हो गया है. आपको क्या चाहिए? आपको पता है कि आप यह यह सारा का सारा कर सकते हैं. अगर आप इसमें से यह यह चाहते हैं तो क्या चाहते हैं? उसको appear कराए buttons और साथ वह बोले यह चाहिए, यह चाहिए, यह चाहिए वह बोलकर respond करे वह करे. मैं आपको बताऊं with a mix of personal assistant and a mix of gamification. Gamification कहां पर है कि जैसे ही आपने कोई एक भी चीज़ perform की ना तो वह app आपको ऐसे celebrate करे कि यार आपने तो कमाल नहीं कर दिया. Dopamine hat, dopamine hat. Dopamine. देखें कि आपका चलता फिरता हर बंदा. भाई मेरा cook eight-eight घंटे लगा था time के ऊपर, एक streaming app के ऊपर क्योंकि दिन का उसका पंद्रह रुपया बनता था easy पैसा के ऊपर. यार आप multiply करें पंद्रह पंद्रह का साढ़े चार सौ रुपया वन रहा था उसका. उसको यह realization नहीं हो रही थी कि मेरा जो घंटा even as a cook जो time लगा रहा था that was not worth it. Yeah. But the hook was so strong कि he was just on it constantly because of these small things. It's just that अगर आप उसको legacy एक boring

uncle वाले तरीके से देखेंगे तो यह नया बच्चा नहीं आएगा या यह message नहीं आएगी आपके school. I completely agree with you, right? And that's why you shouldn't wait for the person to come to your app. You should use the medium where they are going. अगर आपका बच्चा आज TikTok पर जा रहा है या आपका Gen Z जो है वह YouTube पर जा रहा है या किसी और Telegram, Discord पर जा रहा है. Be there. Yeah. Engage them where they want to be engaged rather than waiting them waiting for them to download your app and engage you there. Yeah. Right? It's a, you know, क्या bring the horse, don't bring the horse to the, क्या bring the

horse to the water? Don't wait for the horse to come itself. But वह वही वाली बात है and and and इसमें बड़ी interesting आपने बात यह बोली engagement की कि when you have a personal assistant ना, काफ़ी दमा इस तरह होता है कि मैं काफ़ी लोगों को मैंने podcast से बुलाया था on investments. So mutual funds, stocks वगैरह इसके ऊपर. So lot of people got interested in Pakistan कि यार हमने करना है. And then they started going to these sort of a screensurance and these वह. And every time there was always a wall. There was like कि आप नहीं कर सकते क्योंकि आपका यह यह मसला है. So Pakistan में ना अगर bank account खुलवाना हो या यह कोई anything financial related आपने करना होता ना तो एक guilt होती है. वैसे मेरी दोस्त की call आई मुझे उसने कहा मैं bank account खुलवा रही हूं. मेरा bank account है, मेरी company है, मेरा पैसा है. मुझे क्यों ऐसा लग रहा है three documents. If they don't know you, they will randomly add four five more. Utility bill भी ले आएगा, यह bill ले आएगा, husband का letter भी ले आएगा कि हमें क्या पता है आप कौन हैं? Personal assistant आपको क्या करेगा? वह यह नहीं कहेगा कि आपके पास

और getting to a point where that information can be pulled, right? Yeah. Right? So getting to a point where the assistant is actually an assistant and is aggregating that information. Yeah yeah yeah. First करो Google assistant है, right? Google के पास मेरा Gmail है. Gmail में मेरी बारह साल की email, पंद्रह साल की emails पढ़ी नहीं है. हां. It can pick out information. Yeah. And it can verify लेकिन फिर वही educated versus uneducated का मसला है ना? हां. तो आपको थोड़ा सा थोड़ा सा guided ले जाना पड़ेगा like कि बजाय इसके कि यार if मैंने उन्होंने यह documentation नहीं पूरी की हुई. तो भाई उनसे करवा लो ना customer base बढ़ा लो. हालांकि अब आपको पता है कि Pakistan में central bank ने एक ऐसा account बनाया जिसके लिए आपको कोई documentation की ज़रूरत नहीं है. We call it the आसान account और अब उन्होंने उसकी सहूलत USSD पर भी दे दी है. You can open the आसान mobile account. शुरू तो करो ना, कहीं से तो शुरू करो. And that's why just asking the phone number and the CNIC gets you an account today. Yeah. उसकी limit पच्चीस हज़ार रुपए है. Most लोगों की usage जो है वह पच्चीस हज़ार हां. रुपए कम Right? उससे तो शुरू कराए and get them on the journey once. Yeah. देखो financial inclusion जब हम बात करते हैं financial inclusion की. हम सबसे पहले बात करते हैं account. हमने इतना account खोल लिया तो financial inclusion. जिन बारह फीसे इतना account खोले हुए हैं उनकी कितनी ज़रूरी आतंम पूरी कर रहे हैं. Right? They are also underserved. So we have to figure out how to serve these customers the right way so that they feel the same level of intimacy with their financial services account that they do with their content provider. Yeah. Right? अब I am a subscriber to TBT. जैसे ही आते यह indication कि जी आ गया मैं खोलता हूं. मेरा bank account मुझे कुछ SMS भेजा है notification में कहता है यार यार. यह क्या आ गई? More spam, right? Yeah. Why don't, why don't people enjoy that level of intimacy? Why do they equate going to a bank to going to a dentist or going to the court? Going to the court, yeah. Because it just is not a pleasurable experience. उनकी needs meet होती नहीं है. सवाल सारे पूछे जाते हैं तो और आपको यह डर होता है कि यार मैं अगर over expose कर दूंगा अपने आप को देखेंगे हम आपसे काम ही नहीं करना. Because you are not good enough for us. Yeah. Right? यह भी तो मसला है ना. कोई एक और है. Sorry मैं यह last में like note share करूंगा मैं gonna wrap this up. Yeah. मेरा office एक

लड़की आई. She was she just joined. So she came to me one day. She was like, मतलब भाई आपसे एक सवाल है. मैंने कहा जी बताएं. उसने कहा यार मैं ना आपसे पहले एक काम कर रही थी. उस पर मैं बाहर freelancing का काम चल रहा था. तो मैंने कहा कि अच्छा ज़बरदस्त freelancers तो बड़ा अच्छा कमा रहे हैं. हां, वह ना मेरा महीने का छह साढ़े छह लाख रुपया वन रहा था तो. Where do I sign up? तो मैंने I was like तो what the hell are you doing here? Like what what? हां वह असल में ना मैं मुझे पता ही नहीं है तो मैं actually एक दिन गई उसके पास अपने bank manager के पास तो मेरे पास पैसे आते थे Dubai से. तो मैं branch manager के पास गई तो वहां पर मैं पिछले पता नहीं चार साल से उसके पास ही जा रही हूं but मैं as a student यह काम कर रही थी तो बड़ा मतलब she was very proud of her sir which she should have been और मैं पूरी team run कर रही हूं और यहां पर जो है ना मेरा बड़ा अच्छा revenue आता है. अच्छा अच्छा ज़बरदस्त यह वह तो आपकी team के अंदर होती है? उन्होंने कहा कि हां और वह बेचारी का business है ना सब खत्म क्यों? क्योंकि company जो है वह India में अच्छा legally भी कहीं पर वह नहीं है ना कि कहीं पर कोई problem हो Dubai से base होकर नहीं आधा businessman इसी तरह काम कर रहा है. अब अब universe of the world and all they all have head offices or people who are indians. That's the new world. Yeah. Right? या तो आपका एक flat out हो but वह court की बात है कि some branch manager was like listen like I don't wanna be involved. Yeah. And so they were like यार इसको तो कटा हुआ. उन्होंने इसको block मारा है ऐसा next level उसने कहा यार मेरे पास पैसा आ नहीं रहा मुझे बताए मैं क्या करूं? मैंने बताया तो मैं hotel चौबीस. So it's it's really unfortunate.

देखो आप you've hit the nail on the head right? हमने हमने financial services को एक तोहमत बना दिया कि हम we have made it so difficult for anyone. वह तो खैर sophisticated freelancer है ना वह बाहर से पैसा आ रहा है. बेचारा plumber who is also freelancer. बेचारा carpenter who is also freelancer. मेरे घर लोग आते हैं तो I become a bit of a stickler about it and say you will not get paid till you till you have an account. Yeah. And then I walk them through कि यार यह easy पैसा खोल लो, jazz cash खोल लो, whatever. लेकिन उनको bank जाना कमरे से मिश्किल लिखता है because bank में हर एक ने suit पहना हुआ है, tie पहनी हुई है. वह बेचारे सारा दिन काम करके आते हैं, चपलें पहनी नहीं हैं, shirt पहनी हुई है जिस पर दाग लगे हुए हैं शायद, हाथ गंदे हैं. So they get treated as if they are third rate citizens. जबकि यह लोग हमारी economy चलाते हैं. हमें तो उन जगहों, उन जगहों पर जाकर इन लोगों को sign up करना चाहिए और कहा चाहिए हम आपकी ज़िंदगी कैसे आसान बनाएं. How can we get you not just a bank account but also way to get you to book your appointments. Yeah. How to how do we get you to be on help और you know सकून.com शायदसकून.com नहीं है लेकिन एक ज़माने में था and so get them to, you know, be their life, be their partner that makes their life easier. Enable them to live a life that is fulfilling, treat them with dignity and serve them the way they want to be served. Not every small business or every consumer wants to, wants a loan. Yeah. They sometimes just want the ability to check their balance whenever they want to. Yeah. Sometimes they just want the ability to, you know, transfer 10 rupees to their brother. Yeah. So don't don't create toll gates and walls. Make it simpler. Create an education environment. I think that's that's where I would I would like financial services to see कि हम इतने आसान कर दें कि लोग लोगों को पता है ना चले कि यार हमारा bank हमारे साथ deal कर रहा है. It would be like having utility. You'll only know it's not there. You only know that it's not there when you turn on the switch and it doesn't work. Makes sense, makes sense. We're again at the one hour fifty minute, one minute mark. I sincerely apologize. मैंने promise किया था कि मैं दो घंटे भी नहीं जाऊंगा. But conversation आज की अच्छी थी. अदिया भाई, thank you so much for coming in and sharing all that insight. I'm gonna ask you one last question generally जो कि मैं तमाम guest से पूछता हूं.

You know, you you you grew up, I mean, you were born in Libya. That's a first for us. But you grew up in The US and you were there working in somebody. Some I think Johnson Johnson would be a Fortune 500 company. It's a Fortune 30 company. Fortune 30 company. COVID के time पर भी इन्होंने वह मेरे ख़ुद ही vaccine checks नहीं निकाली थी but इनकी legacy है. उस तरह की आप companies के साथ काम करते रहे हैं फिर आप छोड़कर Pakistan आए, कोई तो सोचा ही होगा, कोई तो समझ आई होगी और फिर आप रुक गए ग्यारह साल आप यहां पर थे. आज भी आप इधर ही हैं और इधर ही काम कर रहे हैं so कुछ ना कुछ आपने even with amongst amidst all of the political turmoil and नाज़ुक सूरतेहाल and नाज़ुक mores that the country is going through. There there is something that you might be seeing that other people might not be seeing. That is the more of an optimistic वह. But by all means यह भी हो सकता है कि अब आपकी बस हो गई और आप सोच रहे हो कि आज तो मुकातें निकलते हैं. Either or, how do you see Pakistan twenty eight years from now in 2050? Seeing what you've seen now, knowing what you've known throughout your life, how do you see Pakistan? You know, political turmoil is notwithstanding.

I think a country of 220,000,000 people, 64% of which is under the age of 35, has no place else but to go up. Right? तेरह तेरह फीसद से आपकी adult population grow कर रही every year and that trend will continue for the next few years. Growing a young population means that this is going to be a consumption economy that requires a production engine. हमें जितना ज़्यादा production engine हम internalize करेंगे उतने हम prosperous होंगे. So in 2050 I actually see a Pakistan that is self reliant. I see a Pakistan जहां पर middle class की consumption और middle class की engagement इतनी ज़्यादा है कि government को कश्कोर लेकर दुनिया जहां नहीं जाना पड़ता, organic tax collection है, data का use government level पर और private sector में इस तरह है कि हम अपने customers को सिर्फ इतना service कर सकते हैं और हम वह skills impart कर रहे हैं लोगों पर जो कि skills of the future हैं. Twenty fifty में जो skills of the future होंगी वह तो शायद हमें पता भी नहीं है. लेकिन उन skills को उन skills तक पहुंचने के लिए हमें आज की skills of the future को impart करना है. Teach the people the basics. हर बच्चे को coding आनी चाहिए. हर बच्चे को multi multiple languages आनी चाहिए. हर बच्चे को एक global citizen बनने की ख्वाहिश होनी चाहिए और यह हमें inculcate करना चाहिए. So दो हज़ार पचास में अगर हम आज यह journey शुरू करते हैं, मैं समझता हूं कि हम एक ऐसी जगह पर पहुंचे होंगे कि हम हो सकता है दुनिया की अगर दस नहीं तो बीस बड़ी economies में से एक होंगे. हम दुनिया में अपनी rightful place लेंगे जहां पर हम लोगों के vested interests के ऊपर अपनी policy नहीं बनाएंगे. हम अपने लोगों के लिए policy बनाएंगे और उस policy के अंदर हम अगले सौ साल, अगले डेढ़ सौ साल, अगले पांच सौ साल के बारे में सोचेंगे. Chinese क्या कहते हैं कि you know, you have to there is a famous proverb that escapes me right now but it's along those lines. And Chinese strategy तो हम देखते हैं कि वह continuously

five year plan, ten year plan, thirty year plan के ऊपर चलती रही है and that has been the reason for this reason. A thousand year plan. Right?

They even have a thousand year plan which they don't talk about. And that has existed from centuries ago. तो देखिए हम एक ऐसा मुल्क है जो अभी तक अपना potential realize नहीं कर सका. लेकिन कब तक हम इसको delay करते रहेंगे? How for how long will we continue to live in the hope of a better Pakistan and not work towards building a better Pakistan? You have a responsibility, I have a responsibility and everybody who lives in Pakistan has a responsibility कि हम अपने circles of influence में वह चीज़ करें जो कि दो हज़ार पचास में हमें अपनी दुनिया की rightful जगह पर लाकर बिठाए और वह rightful जगह हमारी top 10 economies, most educated country in the world, a country that contributes significantly to the growth of the global economy

and that is that is where we are headed, inshallah. Makes sense. अतिभाई, thank you so much for coming in and sharing all the insight. I hope that the the the future that you see or at least hope for, we can all see and our kids can see and should they choose they they they are comfortable in choosing to stay in Pakistan unfortunately. बहुत सारे पढ़े लिखे लोग हैं जो कि recent times के अंदर I've heard कि you know have lost the will to to fight and and and and want to relocate breaks my heart but thank you for taking the time out and sharing all the insight. My pleasure. For all of guys, thank you so much for watching. अगर आपका यह episode पसंद आई हो, आपके दोस्तों याने साथ ज़रूर share करिएगा. किसी बात से agree है, disagree करते हैं. मैं comment section में आकर बताएं what do you think about financial inclusion? What do you think about fintech companies, players? सादा pay, नया pay, banks going digital, legacy, fintechs. क्या आपकी feelings है उनके बारे में? आपके experiences कैसे रहे हैं उनके बारे में? Do let let us know in the comment section below. Audio platforms वाले. Subscriber आने वाले episodes के आपको notification मेरेगी. यहां पर कहीं पर easy पैसा jazz cash साधा पर आ रहा होगा. If you'd like to support the channel, we accept anything from 1 rupee to as much as you'd like it. A thought that counts. इसी के साथ है we are doing something very very exciting for season four. So if you are part of an agency or brand, you can reach out to us. The email address is somewhere on the channel. We'd love to have that conversation. But anyways, this was सय्यद मुज़मिला संजयी. You are watching Thought Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.