The State bank of Pakistan has Granted permission to start Pakistan’s own International Payment Gateway to monitor remittances through the National Information Technology Board (NITB).
This news was shared in a meeting of the Federal Cabinet when the performance of NITB was being discussed. Furthermore, Two projects came under discussion, first was to make a gateway that can flourish Pakistan fast growing freelancing market, and the other was how to prevent money laundering. At the same time, it was informed that SBP did not provide the compliance matrix to have Pakistan International Payment Gateway.
The federal Cabinet meeting: an update!
The work for the International Payment Gateway is initiated as the SBP has approved this establishment project. The CEO of the National Information Technology Board, Mr Shabahat informed Federal Cabinet about the performance of his organization. Some ordinances regarding updating the Charter of NITB and the nervous data system have deteriorated, whereas some other law-making has stopped at different levels.
Subsequently, during the meeting, some members were of the view that instead of incorporating the IT services, Ministries should establish in-house expertise, according to their requirements.
Moreover, the challenge of changing the mindset to adopt e-governance was also highlighted. At the same time, every member of the Cabinet emphasized the need to improve the system’s efficiency. Besides, it was highlighted that IT reforms should percolate down below to the lowest layer of each department to obtain the needed results of digitization. Furthermore, it was proposed that NITB has focused on paperless actions rather than focusing on E-governance.
According to sources, while taking note of the presentation delivered by the CEO of NITB, the Cabinet decided to establish a committee for configuring the issue impacting the Board’s performance and submitting recommendations to the Cabinet within 15 days. The committee includes the following members:
1. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Establishment -. (Chairman)
2. Secretary, Cabinet Division
3. Secretary, IT & Telecommunication Division and
4. Chairman of the National Information Technology Board.
Meanwhile, the prime minister of Pakistan Imran Khan expressed his concerns over the slow progress of proposals highlighted by NITB and ordered the fast-track completion of these projects.
What is PayPal and why it’s not operating in Pakistan?
PayPal is a company based in the USA and operating online payment systems across the globe. It supports online money transfers and provides an alternative to paper methods like checks and money orders.
It’s been a long time since the Pakistani freelancers and e-commerce players are demanding PayPal be introduced in Pakistan. Besides, they have been requesting to set up our PayPal-like payment gateway. But to the disappointment of many, PayPal is still not introduced its services in Pakistan.
Secretary of Ministry of Information Technology Maroof Afzal told the Senate Standing Committee that:
“PayPal had not rejected the offer to come to Pakistan because any issues were there in operating in Pakistan. Their internal working is such that they are not yet ready to offer services to people in Pakistan.”
Mr. Afzal tried to explain why PayPal is not starting in Pakistan; Senator Ateeq Shaikh said that they are afraid to come to Pakistan unless any laws protect the company’s interests.
However, Soon Pakistan is going to launch its international payment gateway, which will work precisely like Paypal. Pakistan is the fourth largest freelancer community globally, and we have an opportunity to create our payment system that international and local customers can trust. This practice can be beneficial and allow us to keep the money in Pakistan.
And when is this exactly happening ?
Or it is just empty promises like as usual.
No one knows how much the government will keep its promises, but at least we can hope