Pakistan government is in talks with payment gateways PayPal and Stripe to help IT professionals and freelancers transfer their funds to the South Asian country, said a senior official on Monday.
These payment gateways are crucial for the Pakistani companies that provide IT services to foreign companies and freelancers to transfer their hard-earned funds to their accounts in Pakistan. These gateways currently don’t provide this service to Pakistani firms and professionals.
“The biggest challenge for IT professionals and freelancers is to bring money into Pakistan. So we need companies like PayPal, Stripe and other entities. We are pursuing them and have submitted a business case,” Dr Umar Saif, caretaker Federal Minister for IT and telecommunications in Pakistan, told Khaleej Times in an interview on the sidelines of the Gitex Global at Dubai World Trade Centre. From October 16 to 20, more than 6,000 local, regional and international companies and start-ups are exhibiting their products. Around 27 companies and over 45 start-ups from Pakistan are exhibiting at Gitex.
The minister noted that there are some regulatory compliance issues, so steps would be taken for them to operate in the country. “We’ll make progress on this very quickly in the coming few weeks.”
Pakistan is the world’s second-largest online freelance workforce, with around a million. The South Asian nation creates 75,000 IT graduates every year.
