LAHORE: In an effort to promote digital payments in Pakistan, Allied Bank has led the way to become the first bank to go live with NIFT ePay. National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT), an existing Payment System Operator/Provider (PSO/PSP) offering nationwide cheque clearing services, has launched its eCommerce Payment Gateway under SBP’s rules for Payment System Operators and Payment System Providers (PSO/PSP).
NIFT ePay’s primary focus is to execute interoperable and secure digital commerce payments for large number of banking customers in Pakistan. This provides an opportunity to customers to conduct eCommerce transactions directly through their bank accounts or wallets.
‘Allied Bank’ is one of the largest banks in Pakistan with branch network comprising of 1380+ branches and a customer base of above 4 million, operating in the corporate, retail and consumer banking services. Allied Bank has been focused to provide digital financial service to its retail and business customers specially to process their payments digitally.
Earlier NIFT and Allied Bank signed a strategic agreement in January 2020 for enabling digital commerce payments (Mobile / Electronic Commerce Payments) through NIFT’s DFS platform under the brand name “NIFT ePay”. The agreement was signed by Mr. Haider Wahab, CEO – NIFT and Mr. Sohail Aziz, Chief Digital Banking Group, Allied Bank. The event was also honored by the presence of the CEO of Allied Bank, Mr. Tahir Hassan Qureshi and Mr. Tariq Javed Ghumman, Chief Business Services Group, Allied Bank.
Speaking about the launch, Mr. Sohail Aziz Awan, Chief Digital Banking – ABL, said, “ABL is continuously re-aligning towards digital transformation by adopting robust technology platforms and expanding outreach to provide innovative and customer centric products across all customer segments. After introducing self-service branches, digital lockers, co-badged cards in the past & voice assisted banking recently, this is yet another industry first initiative from ABL which will significantly contribute to expand digital payments in Pakistan. Partnership with NIFT ePay service is another step to expand digital payments ecosystem of the Bank.”
Mr. Haider Wahab, CEO-NIFT said, “It is a very important milestone for NIFT and the payments industry. It the first time a domestic ecommerce payment gateway has processed an account based ecommerce transaction in Pakistan. I believe this is history in the making, which would have a very positive impact on the payment landscape in Pakistan. I thank Allied Bank for their support and belief in the NIFT ePay proposition to be the first bank to go live.”
