HBL and NIFT Enable Account-Based Online Transactions

HBL and National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT) have signed an agreement enabling account-based payments to HBL Pay’s (IPG) e-commerce merchants through NIFT’s ePay (DFS platform). E-Commerce merchants using HBL Pay will now benefit from increased payment flexibility, as they will be able to offer direct, straight-from-bank-account payment options to all of their customers. The agreement will also allow HBL account holders to make payments to merchants on boarded on NIFT ePay Platform. ALSO READ FBR Notifies Applicability Date of Sales Tax For Online Marketplaces Until now, e-commerce merchants who used HBL Pay for payment processing, allowed their customers to make either card-based transactions using Visa, MasterCard, UnionPay and PayPak debit/credit cards or card-less (directly from bank accounts) transactions for HBL account holders. Going forward, all such merchants would be able to offer their customers account-based payments from all of NIFT’s banking partners. Similarly, e-commerce merchants who use NIFT ePay for payment processing will be able to collect payments through HBL account holders along with other banking partners. Speaking on the occasion, Abrar Mir, Chief Innovation and Financial Inclusion Officer – HBL, said Meanwhile Haider Wahab, CEO of NIFT said ALSO READ Cabinet Sets Cotton Intervention Price at Rs. 5000 per 40kg of Seed Cotton Both HBL and NIFT believe that this enablement would further accelerate the digitalization of commerce across Pakistan. Banks, aggregators, payment processors and e-commerce merchants – in essence, the entire ecosystem – would benefit from a much-expanded customer base. Overall, the new arrangement is expected to impact over +90 million bank account and digital wallet users in Pakistan.