Caretaker Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunications, Dr. Umar Saif,announced on Wednesday that Pakistan is on the verge of receiving positivenews regarding the introduction of PayPal and Stripe payment gateways inthe country.
Addressing the media alongside Caretaker Information Minister MurtazaSolangi, Dr. Saif highlighted the absence of suitable financial instrumentsto facilitate payments for Pakistan’s growing freelancing community.
He acknowledged that companies like PayPal and Stripe had concerns,including issues related to the FATF. Despite these challenges, Dr. Saifexpressed optimism that within the next four to six weeks, Pakistan wouldreceive the promising news of these payment gateways becoming available,and a solution would be devised to make these services accessible to thefreelancer community.
Dr. Saif emphasized that approximately 1.5 million Pakistanis are engagedin IT freelancing, making Pakistan the second-largest online workforceglobally. However, he noted that the lack of necessary infrastructure islimiting progress.
To address this, he mentioned the E-Rozgar program, which aims to provideinterest-free loans to the private sector, with plans to establishco-working spaces for up to 500,000 people.
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The interim minister also highlighted that Pakistan’s IT sector comprisesaround 19,000 companies, providing employment for 150,000 individuals andachieving exports valued at $2.5 billion in official exports. Dr. Saifmentioned that some IT companies maintain foreign exchange reserves andrevenues abroad due to restrictions on repatriating US dollars.
Efforts have been made to allow these companies to retain 50% of theirrevenue in US dollar accounts and receive corporate debit cards forinternational payments.
Notably, the State Bank of Pakistan recently increased the permissibleretention limit for IT exporters from 35% to 50% of their export proceedsin the Exporters’ Specialized Foreign Currency Accounts (ESFCAs) to boostthe export of IT and IT-enabled services.