Every new idea originates in the United States, but reaches the third world nations after covering a round of the first world nations. Whether it is online banking or any other service, the developing nations like Pakistan are singled out without any apparent reasons. The information technology has been emerging as the largest earning sector for the last few years in various third world countries, including Pakistan, but the mode of payment or financial transactions have come as big hurdle in the way of online working. The world is heading towards integrated banking system and online banks such as PayPal and Payoneer have presence in various countries of the world, but Pakistan has been singled out.
Pakistan’s information technology sector is growing and Pakistani software developers have already penetrated in the online job market of the United States and the European Union, but payment against their online services has come as big hurdle in the way of their business growth. There is little guarantee that they would get the payment against their services. It happened several times with software developers that they have prepared an application according to the requirement of the buyers, but they were not paid on one pretext or the other. The most prominent online bank, PayPal, has no presence in Pakistan and the reasons are unspecified. The traditional sectors of the Pakistani economy are growing at a fast rate and so is the development in the digital economy.However, the IT professionals have to face difficulties in receiving payments from abroad due to the absence of e-commerce payment gateways. Why the government is ignoring to invite online banks in Pakistan is unclear. The volume of software exports is in billions and the government has also established certain institutions to help the IT industry, but the lethargy prevails in every government department and lack of will in the government officials is another issue which needs attention. As part of this nation, the officers won’t change their behavior unless they are pushed and prod by the proactive leadership.
The State Bank of Pakistan, the Ministry of Information Technology and finance division of the federal government, all are in deep slumber otherwise there is no apparent hindrance in bringing the e-commerce payment gateways such as PayPal, Google pay, Samsung pay, Ali-pay or Payneer to Pakistan. Software companies in the United States and elsewhere in the European Union have a good option to hire Pakistani software engineers at nominal rates and get the job done in time, but they also face difficulties in transfer of funds to Pakistan. Sooner the government pays attention to this side of the economy, the better.
