JazzCash plans to expand its regional footprint

KARACHI: JazzCash plans to expand its regional footprint, particularly in the Gulf, to facilitate cross-border payments to the Pakistani customers.

As part of this initiative, JazzCash has partnered with du Pay-a UAE-based financial services provider, to enable seamless cross-border transactions through Western Union. This collaboration allows Pakistani nationals to send money directly to JazzCash mobile wallets in Pakistan, making remittances faster and more convenient.

Murtaza Ali, President of JazzCash, addressing at Money 20/202 Asia, disclosed that JazzCash is set to expand its focus on Insurtech to help bridge Pakistan’s protection gap, introduce asset fractionalization, allowing the masses to own a fraction of high-value assets, democratize stock investments and trading, and significantly grow its digital merchant base, with a strong emphasis on supporting women-led businesses and freelancers.

He said that financial technology is not just reshaping economies, but it’s transforming lives and empowering underserved communities across emerging markets. Around 3,000 senior decision-makers from banks, payment gateways, card networks, big tech, venture capital firms, lending institutions, blockchain, and bitcoin companies attended Money20/20, making it a key platform for advancing fintech discussions.

Murtaza highlighted that a large segment of the adult population still hasn’t opened their first bank account, and there is a huge scope for the financial inclusion. He urged stakeholders to design accessible solutions that address real needs on the ground.

He emphasized that, with over 20 million monthly active users, JazzCash is driving a shift from a cash-based economy to a digital one, aligning with the State Bank of Pakistan’s vision and the government’s broader goal of digitizing the economy. Currently, JazzCash has the largest QR payments network in Pakistan, and is the country’s largest digital loan issuer, having disbursed 108 million digital loans for productive purposes.

He mentioned that in 2024, JazzCash processed transaction values equivalent to approximately 9 percent of Pakistan’s GDP and accounts for nearly 50 percent of all IDs on RAAST, the country’s national payment platform underscoring its critical role in Pakistan’s financial ecosystem.

Murtaza also commended the collaborative efforts of the State Bank of Pakistan, the Pakistan Telecommunication Autho-rity, and the Securities & Exchange Commission of Pakistan, recognizing their role in balancing innovation with consumer protection, thereby advancing digital and financial inclusion across the nation.

In his concluding remarks, Murtaza discussed the expanding digital capabilities and services offered by VEON, the parent company of Jazz and Mobilink Microfinance Bank, aimed at accelerating digital and financial inclusion across its markets.

Specifically, within its fintech vertical, VEON’s digital operators JazzCash of Pakistan, Simply of Kazakhstan, and Beepul of Uzbekistan, collectively processed a gross transaction value equivalent to $ 36.5 billion over the past twelve months as of December 2024, contributing to the digitization of economies in Pakistan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, he mentioned.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025