ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan government is all set to invite bids within two weeks for the establishment of the country’s first-ever international online payment gateway to boost exports, tax revenue and document the economy, a top official said on Wednesday.
The development comes after years of the South Asian nation failing to woo an international online payment platform like PayPal to start its services in Pakistan.
In the absence of such a gateway, exporters have had to rely on slow and costly payment systems like bank transfers and hundi — informal money transfer system that circumvents anti-money laundering laws — to receive payments for products sold in the international market.
The need for a payment gateway has also swelled manifold since e-commerce giant Amazon added Pakistan in its sellers’ list last week.
“We have completed our initial work, and a tender for the international payment gateway is going public within two weeks,” Shabahat Ali Shah, Chief Executive Officer at the National Information Technology Board in Islamabad, told Arab News, saying now “the biggest hurdle” for exporters would be removed.
Shah said the venture would be launched through a public-private partnership to make it competitive in the market, adding that the private company that would win the bid would provide design and technical support while the government would extend ownership to it.
He declined to share the name or details about the gateway’s working mechanism, security features and other details before the issuance of the tender within two weeks.
“This will surely help the government boost tax revenue and document the economy,” he said, adding that businesses who had been using hundi to receive their funds would be incentivized to switch to the new gateway. “We are lowering the cost [of remittances] to make it attractive for businessmen and exporters,” he added.
Shah said Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and freelancers would “be able to get the payments from abroad against their exports directly into their accounts within millizeconds ... This will prove a game-changer in boosting our exports.”
SMEs constitute nearly 90 percent of all the enterprises in Pakistan, employ 80 percent of non-agricultural labor force, and constitute 40 percent share of annual GDP. However, unlike large enterprises in the formal sector, a small and medium enterprise is constrained by financial and other resources, according to the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority.
Finance Minister Shaukat Tareen recently promised in a press conference to extend concessionary loans and other facilities to SMEs to boost exports and create job opportunities for the youth. The launch of the international payment gateway is one of the planned initiatives to help the industry, Shah said.
