NayaPay, a Pakistan-based fintech platform, announced today that it has raised $13 million in a funding round led by Zayn Capital. Other global institutions and angel investors, such as MSA Novo, Singapore-based Saison Capital and Empower Finance’s CEO, Warren Hogarth, also participated in the seed round.
The fintech company said that it plans to use the funding to launch its multi-service messaging and payment app and to build financial management and payment acceptance tools for businesses in the South Asian nation.
Danish Lakhani, the CEO and Founder of NayaPay, said that the company’s super-app enables people living in Pakistan to send and receive funds, split bills and make payments conveniently from smartphones. Additionally, the executive stated that the firm has issued virtual and physical Visa cards linked to the NayaPay wallet, which allows businesses to accept payments and users to make POS payments.
Lakhani identified NayaPay as a leading digital payment platform that brings revolution in Pakistan. He described the country as a cash-heavy economy, where only 1% of $4 trillion in payments are executed electronically. The population of people living in Pakistan currently stands at 220 million.
Lakhani said that NayaPay’s goal is much bigger as the company aims to bank millions of adults who remain unbanked in the nation. Women are mostly affected as only 30% of them hold a bank account. Moreover, the CEO said that the youth and freelance communities in the country are locked out by traditional banks. According to recent statistics by the World Bank, around 100 million people in Pakistan are unbanked.
Lakhani revealed that NayaPay is the first organization of this nature to get an e-money license from the central bank, State Bank of Pakistan. He said that the fintech seeks to simplify financial services and make them accessible to millions of consumers across the nation. In other words, the firm wants to boost digitization, especially for the unbanked population.
Improving Access to Finance
NayaPay believes that there is a significant gap between consumers’ expectations and financial services currently available in Pakistan. As a result, the fintech firm has continued to partner with like-minded organizations to enable consumers and merchants to communicate and transact conveniently, securely and cheaply.
Recently, NayaPay became part of the Visa Fintech Track program. The partnership has enabled the firm to have access to Visa’s growing partner network, resources and technology to develop innovation in digital payment in Pakistan. As an e-money institution (EMI), people use NayaPay to open e-money accounts within minutes and easily make digital payments to businesses and others.
