ISLAMABAD – The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has been aggressivelyworking towards developing a digital product suite by leveraging disruptivetechnology in the banking industry and providing easy to use platforms toits customers to fulfill their financial needs.
NBP is one of the largest commercial banks of Pakistan, operating throughmore than 1500 local and international branches and has achieved astrategic milestone by becoming the first bank in Pakistan to launch‘Huawei Pay’ for its mobile banking users with Huawei or Honor smartphones.
Pakistan has become the third country in the world accepting Huawei Paytransactions after China & Russia, putting Pakistan at the forefront of thedigital banking transformation.
The milestone was achieved in collaboration with UnionPay International(UPI), NBP’s strategic partner and Paysys Labs, NBP’s technology partner.This initiative is important for NBP as it paves the way for building anecho system for digital payments as Huawei Pay enables NBP mobile bankingusers that own Huawei or Honor smartphones to enjoy QR & NFC Payments atUPI N-Tag & QR Merchants.
Through Huawei Pay, NBP UPI Virtual Card Holders will benefit from quickerand convenient digital payments, with fully secure technology. NBP UPIVirtual Card Holders can simply begin utilizing the service by adding theircard details to the Huawei Pay Wallet App. The app also has an in-builtfeature of viewing purchase history for customers to keep a track record.Why is This a Paradigm Shift in Banking for Pakistan?
Read Top Stories
Over the years, merchant acquiring has been a major issue in Pakistan asthere are only 57,000 POS devices placed at only 29,000 unique merchantlocations in the country. Two key reasons behind this are the high cost ofacquiring and inefficient settlements.
With the launch of Huawei Pay, a milestone has been reached whereby POSacquiring is no longer a limiting factor. With N-Tag & QR payments,merchants across the country with little or no acquiring cost can beonboarded with no connectivity link up required.
The easier to apply and plug & play methodology and with the rising numberof tech-savvy consumers, particularly millennials and generation z, it willbe comparatively easier to build an ecosystem for digital payments at zerostartup cost.
