Pursuing its strategy to disrupt traditional payments in Pakistan, one of the country’s leading mobile wallets, JazzCash, has enabled 350,000 businesses to use their smartphones as POS machines. This innovation not only helps restructure the payments section but also fills the major gap in financial sector inclusion for SMEs all over Pakistan.
HISTORY OF PAYMENT IN PAKISTAN
Today, Pakistan is at a nascent stage of becoming a cashless society and to strengthen this stream there are some barriers such as a low banked population, no or minimum access to useful and affordable technologies or services to participate effectively in digital financial services, especially in the rural areas. But the recent global health crisis, COVID-19, triggered the growth of digital payments since businesses and consumers look for safer and more efficient ways to transact.
JazzCash with a large number of customers and a widespread network has been at the forefront of this change. Through financial inclusion services by use of technology, the company has been instrumental in promoting the use of digital payments across different industries.
A Game-Changer for SMEs
To many small businesses, especially those in rural areas the procurement and maintenance costs of conventional POS machines have been high. Most of the time it is revealed that these businesses work on very thin and stringent margins; besides they lack the necessary infrastructure which is required for implementing more sophisticated payment transfer channels. The above barrier is well solved by JazzCash’s solution which has been designed to be cheap and can easily be employed.
The new feature will allow business people to take payments through their smartphones – no extra hardware is required. The obvious advantage of this is the minimizing of the running cost while giving the customer a smooth and safe way to pay. In addition, QR code payments and mobile wallet acceptance when added as additional choices in the payment solution provide consumers with more choices.
Enhancing Financial Inclusion
This endeavor of JazzCash is considered a lot in the direction of the majority of Pakistanis being financially included. This means that the company is extending the frontier of formality by facilitating digital payment acceptance by SMEs. This inclusion thus creates additional avenues for small business owners to obtain credit status, financial planning, and business analytics that form part of the ingredients for the growth and sustenance of the enterprises.
Moreover, the transfer is by the direction of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in shifting more towards digital means in the financial sector and less on cash. The SBP has been very much involved in encouraging programs that advance the use and adoption of digital payment systems since they act as a fostering ground for economic activity.
Security and Trust
There is a massive issue regarding the security of the use of digital payments in the modern world. This has however been handled by JazzCash through putting in place security measures that enhance the security of the system for both the business end and the consumer end. That is to support, the platform optimizes protection for transactions by employing encryption, two-factor authentication, and real-time transaction monitoring. Further, JazzCash has a rich customer support system that helps businessmen to ensure that if ever there is a complication or problem, they can easily address it.
The Road Ahead
With its current services, JazzCash is looking forward to serving as many business establishments as possible in Pakistan, as the company grows the services also increase. Smartphones have recently evolved from being mere handsets to point-of-sale machines, that is just the tip of the iceberg. JazzCash is expected to roll out yet other services that are useful for businesses, for instance, advanced tools to complement the existing ones, enhanced tools for daily stock management, and instant rewarding of customers through loyalty programs.
Businesses are pushed towards the use of digital payments not as an extra you can apply for in today’s world, but as a necessity. This is particularly so since consumer preferences are gradually shifting to digital wallets that afford an even faster way of mobile payment.
Conclusion
The fact that JazzCash is moving to transform 350,000 smart mobiles into POS terminals is a landmark achievement in Pakistan’s cashless society quest. JazzCash by providing easily accessible payment solutions to the SMEs is not only promoting Financial Inclusion but also providing an opportunity to the underserved society to move towards a cashless society. This will go a long way to help boost the future of commerce in Pakistan as the country slowly changes to embrace the digital world.
