The Caretaker Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Dr. Umar Saif, shared updates on ongoing discussions with PayPal and Stripe including Wise regarding their potential entry into the Pakistani market. Driven by the objective of facilitating freelancers and e-commerce companies, the government is actively engaging with PayPal and Stripe to enable easy payment transactions within Pakistan's borders. Furthermore, during recent deliberations between Dr. Saif and officials from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), various initiatives were explored including dollar retention accounts and corporate debit cards for IT companies. These measures aim to streamline financial operations for IT businesses by simplifying dollar retention and expenditure processes. Additionally, efforts are underway to expedite RAAST merchant payments (P2M) through an enhanced request-to-pay facility as part of advancing Pakistan's digital payment ecosystem.
The IT minister emphasized the importance of bringing PayPal, Stripe, and Wise to Pakistan in order to facilitate freelancers and e-commerce companies to receive payments easily. He mentioned that discussions were held with the State Bank of Pakistan regarding dollar retention accounts and corporate debit cards for IT companies. These initiatives would allow IT companies to retain and spend their dollars effortlessly.
Furthermore, Dr Umar Saif expressed his intention to accelerate the next stage of RAAST merchant payments, particularly focusing on the request-to-pay facility.
