SBP urged to provide payment gateway facilities to Pakistan IT companies

The Centre for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) strongly recommended the State Bank of Pakistan to provide payment gateway facilities to Pakistani IT companies to increase the current size of this sector from $2.8 billion to over $5 billion within one year.
The representatives from both the organisations while speaking at the concluding session of a series of three seminars focusing "Entry Barriers for Youth in the IT Sector" held here on Tuesday said that due to the absence of payment gateway facilities, e-commerce and IT businesses cannot access international markets, whereas other regional competitors have clear advantage over Pakistani companies. Participants from various local universities, start-up businesses and experienced IT entrepreneurs attended the session.
They said it was the first phase of a larger policy advocacy project by the partner organisations to look at the policy impediments in the country for promotion of entrepreneurship culture, with particular reference to IT sector. Two earlier sessions were held in Karachi and Lahore last month.
Jehan Ara, President P@SHA, said that this initiative would help identify the key policy issues, which will be taken up by the associations with the government. She said that youth should become connect with P@SHA and Pakistan Software Export Board to learn more about initiatives such as ICT Awards, P@SHA LaunchPad and career expos being held on annual basis. P@SHA also run several mentoring session in major cities for which a calendar is available on P@SHA website, said Jehan.
Hammad Siddiqui, Senior Programme Manager, CIPE said that his organisation which is a non-profit affiliate of the US Chamber of Commerce has been actively engaged with P@SHA for various policy advocacy initiatives. He said that by identifying key entry barriers, P@SHA could develop a policy advocacy initiative and ask government to remove the impediments for youth in starting their businesses.
He said that since its presence in Pakistan, CIPE has been working in the areas such as chamber development, youth and women entrepreneurship, economic journalism development etc.
Zia Imran, Managing Director, Pakistan Software Export Board introduced a new initiative for IT businesses in which up to 10 groups of 1-5 members are being facilitated through an incubation process to transform a concept into a sellable IT product or service. He said that the average age of IT companies in the country is anywhere from 1- 8 years and most companies are owned by entrepreneurs in the 25-40 age group. However, despite better start-up opportunities in the IT sector, after completing their studies, 95 per cent of students focus their efforts on looking for a job and do not explore entrepreneurship as a career.
Young entrepreneurs and students were engaged in a discussion that revealed lack of mentorship, arbitration facilities and lack of entrepreneurship training at the university level are the main cause of concern. They said that the HEC should consider including entrepreneurship as one of the key subject in all curriculums at the university level. In the next phase, P@SHA plans to provide a platform to address the specific requirements such as templates, advise, online forums and also a pool of mentors that youth can get advice from. Moreover, specific legislative issues such as provision of payment gateway, bankruptcy law and arbitration law will be addressed through extensive policy advocacy process.