Pakistan’s eCommerce market witness double-digit growth: SBP

Pakistan’s eCommerce market size has increased to 96 billion Rs in Q12021 as compared to 71 billion Rs in Q12020, witnessing a growth of over 35 percent stated State Bank of Pakistan.

As per details, eCommerce merchants with prepayment have been increased to 2,164 from 1,410 in past 12 months. The information was revealed during the fourth meeting of National e-Commerce Council (NeCC).

The NeCC discussed operationalization of cross border e-Commerce procedure, incentives for promoting e-commerce, discussion on International Payment Services i.e. PayPal through checkout.

The National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT) informed the meeting that it is in the process of developing a payment solution for cross border/international payments in collaboration with the SBP through which people residing outside Pakistan will be able to pay through Paypal, Google Pay and Apple Pay while payments within/from Pakistan will be processed by integration with any international payment provider.

It was told that the payment system will be facilitated by the involvement of third party. Its payment facility was to become functional by the end of 2020. However, the multi-party engagement with the effect of COVID has really effected the plan.

It was told that the development is ongoing and will update as soon as they are ready to take it to SBP. Assistance from SBP will come in once they put in the complete details for their review. The pilot run is now expected in second quarter of 2021.