Digital Pakistan Vision and Challenges



Pakistan is fortunate that youth is 60 per cent of its population. This percentage of regular users of digital services such as digital payments or e-Payments, or internet access, provides infinite opportunities.
The PM has taken a gigantic initiative to upgrade digital banking infrastructure and ease the conditions and exhausting paperwork for digital services such as e-payments, online transactions and the issuance of credit cards, and their use at Online stores or in-store shopping, at petrol pumps, online utility bill payments and university fee payment gateways, but unfortunately, such easy and instant payment facility is currently involved too much paperwork, guarantees and regulations.
The government needs to overhaul the whole banking infrastructure and encourage businesses, retailers, petrol pumps, PIA, Railways ticketing, superstores, schools and colleges to introduce payment gateways and banks should offer credit cards to businessmen and especially to government employees, since they will use such services when they run short of funds, not falling prey to usurers.

The innovative digital payments will remove their financial constraints and the funds will be utilised based on a credit limit for 45 to 51 days and the bills can be paid through salaries, decreasing chances for default.
It would be great to boost and promote digital services, paving the way for international digital firms like. Google, PayPal, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Alibaba Group, Stripe and Apple to enter Pakistani financial markets specially the PayPal, eBay and Amazon, which is strongly required by freelancers and authors.
At Present, only Skrill, Payoneer and Traditional IBAN/Swift code or wire transfers are available to Pakistan which is very costly, time-consuming and with inflated fees of 10 per cent to 30 per cent plus the local banks’ processing charges.
On the other hand, India has reaped the benefits of the digital world as the world’s best companies, PayPal, Amazon and Google, are serving the country with their innovative digital products and services.
By giving access to these digital payment giants, Pakistan will open doors for Foreign Direct Investment and will also reduce the heavy demand for the paper currency as people avoid using cash and prefer to use their credit and debit cards at online stores.
Even Pakistan’s governance Model may modernise and upgrade the reporting system, complaint management, receipts and payments, and public sector spending through an electronic dashboard that will refresh automatically if any public-sector the transaction takes place. Governance could improve if the governance model is implemented by imparting training to all staff at federal, provincial and district levels so that there is a proper reporting channel to ensure transparency.
The sale of property should be digitised so that revenue records may reflect the history of property owners and do away with any claim. Ownership, heirship, and birth certificates, domicile, PRC and all other certificates should be generated online to improve the productivity of the public sector.
The process of employees’ performance evaluation, superannuation and pension may also be automated so that the entire employment record will be available when they reach the points of promotion, superannuation or drawing pensions. Personal IDs must be opened online through scale-wise supervisors, that is, the District Accounts Officers, provincial Accountant Generals and Accountant General of Pakistan, so that a trail is available to track salary disbursements.
It is a commendable step by Law and Home Departments to automate the cause lists of the higher and lower judiciary but it must intimate the petitioners and respondents through SMS and email regarding their case status, date of hearing and case disposal.
Furthermore, voter lists should also be automated and Election Commission of Pakistan must make it available for all citizens to register their vote when they reach 18, after getting their CNIC/Smart card or Form B. This will enable the district Election Commissioner offices to enter the data online and consolidate the voter lists.
There should be a central directorate of all departments so that they may have digital coordination, especially the FBR, AGP, Finance Ministry, Establishment division, Cabinet division, NAB and Intelligence Directorates. Digital Pakistan vision will have a great impact to attract Foreign Direct Investment, strengthen the Rupee against the Dollar, stabilise the economy and discourage the paper currency that usually falls heavy upon the rupee.
We are excited after Tania Aidrus’ statement during the Digital Pakistan Vision launch and her confidence that the sacrifices of a higher paycheck for the country is highly appreciable, but she will face resistance from the stakeholders who have been misusing the manual system for decades. It is an uphill task to compel such elements to adopt this digital endeavour which will choke their corruption stream even as it streamlines things for the common people.
Other resistance will be from the provinces where the PTI is in opposition, especially in Sindh. It will be a big challenge for the IT and Telecom Ministry will achieve its desired objectives given the shortage of IT-skilled staff and messed-up bureaucratic structure. The government should make digital literacy compulsory everywhere at federal, provincial and district levels by setting up IT skill development centres to train the supervisory and office staff.
Moreover, the government should establish a venture capital firm to support, incubate, accelerate and fund start-ups and accelerate the mushrooming growth of big start-ups.
Entrepreneurship courses must be introduced with the help of SMEDA, LUMS, IBA Karachi, IBA Sukkur, SZabist, NUST, FAST, COMSATS, Virtual University and SDPI so that entrepreneurs may learn to launch their start-ups successfully to conquer the digital world.
Start-ups like Careem, Bykea, and Rozee.pk are great examples of successful start-ups. Globally, the youth after getting their education, start businesses to create employment, but in Pakistan after graduation and Masters, youth start hunting for a job. That is why Pakistan has a high level of unemployment as youth avoid entering entrepreneurship since they lack skills, training and financial resources. Punjab IT Board has done a tremendous job by incubating, funding and accelerating start-ups in the public sector under the Plan9 and PlanX programmes but this should be followed by all provinces so the proper start-up culture could develop.
The Higher Education Commission, IT Boards, Technical Education, Intermediate education boards should promote digital Pakistan by introducing governance, payment solutions and funding the ideas at school and college level.
It is a good sign that online shopping sites have experienced a mushroom growth but mostly accept the traditional COD Model which often causes losses if the customer returns the product or is unavailable.
E-payments ensure that the product is shipped to the target buyer. Though some Online shopping sites such as Popular Daraz.pk and Yayvo.com have started accepting credit or debit cards issued by Pakistani banks, the number of transactions is low, owing to hassles in getting credit cards from the banks.
At present, only a few banks are issuing credit cards with online transactions and point of sale (POS) transactions, but unfortunately, this is limited to big cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad,
The average interest or mark-up charged, 40 per cent, is very high as compared to other countries. The government, especially the State Bank of Pakistan, must direct banks to lower the mark-up ratio and ease the conditions to let more people avail this facility. especially the salaried and businessmen.
In big cities, credit cards are issued instantly by banks to the salaried employees of government and companies but in small cities, untrained local managers avoid issuing credit cards. One will surely experience such embarrassment and an inconvenience at the hands of unprofessional managers picked to only raise deposits, even if they compromise the quality of service.
Therefore, Ms Aidrus and her team will have to work to appease the stakeholders to achieve the desired goals so that Pakistanis may reap the benefits from this digital world. To achieve this goal, the IT and Telecom portfolio must be given to a professional well versed in IT and telecom, preferably a Computer Science or IT graduate.
There is also a big concern regarding inflated Taxes levied upon the business community which need to be reduced if they use digital currency since it will enable the FBR to track payments. The e-currency spectrum will help reduce the crime rate, tax evasion and hoarding as people will use credit cards and digital wallets such as PayPal, Ali Pay, Google Pay, which can easily be tracked and monitored through digital systems.