Talks under way to bring PayPal to Pakistan
Finance Minister Asad Umar while speaking at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Peshawar, on Monday has rubbished reports that the federal government is impeding PayPal’s entry into the Pakistani market, claiming that it is actually “chasing” the online payments giant.
At the meeting, the Federal Minister was asked if his ministry or any other federal institution was against PayPal expanding its operations into Pakistan.
“What you’ve been told about PayPal is completely wrong,” the finance minister replied to the reporter who had raised the question.
“PayPal is neither stuck at my desk, nor the State Bank, nor any other government institution. The situation is actually reverse. We are [actually] chasing PayPal. I took this even though this issue is not directly related to me,” he said.
He further added, “I know that this is a fantastic source for the employment of our youth, our boys and girls who work from their homes. The nonavailability of PayPal or any other effective online payment system causes them a lot of problems. This is why I took the initiative myself and had a message sent to the PayPal chief executive officer and told him that, ‘This is such an important issue, if you want, I can fly to the US myself and meet you’. We have made contact with them and initiated a dialogue with them.”
Asad Umer has also revealed that he is also working on another online payment system, in addition to his efforts to bring PayPal to Pakistan
“After PayPal, the second [biggest online payment system] in the world is AliPay, whose subsidiary is Ant Financial. This Ant Financial has acquired the majority shares of Telenor Bank, which previously used to be Tameer Bank. In my talks with them, they have assured me that among their first few projects will be an online payment system. So that [is also on the table] but we will keep on chasing PayPal as well.”
Earlier this month, the State Bank of Pakistan said that Pakistan had failed to document straight money worth $1.5 billion due to unavailability of online payment systems such as PayPal in the country.
It was earlier in Nov 2015, the IT Ministry had announced that it was set to invite global online payment giants PayPal and Alibaba to offer their services in Pakistan. further details in this regard were not made public, whether the invitation was officially sent and what was the response from both if the said online payment giants.
