NayaPay, a Pakistani start-up, has procured USD 13 million in a seed funding round as the firm sought to lure millions of users in one of the globe’s most colossal under-banked countries.
In an interview, Chief Executive Officer of the company, Danish Lakhani, stated that MSA Novo, Zayn Capital, and Silicon Valley investor Graph Ventures had supervised the Karachi-based start-up’s early-stage funding round. NayaPay has emerged as the first start-up to deliver fiscal services after spawning a license from the State Bank of Pakistan in August 2021. In addition, the fintech platform’s chat-centric payments application began operations focusing on a previously untapped market comprising students and freelancers.
Following the trend in developing nations like Pakistan, fintech start-ups are enticing surging investor interest as more individuals embrace the reliability and convenience of digital payments, especially during the coronavirus pandemic. It is estimated that in Pakistan, merely 1% of around USD 4 trillion of payment transactions are processed digitally, according to official reports. According to a report by the World Bank, Pakistan as a nation possesses the third-largest population in the world of people devoid of accessibility to essential, convenient and accessible banking services.
Chief Executive Officer of NayaPay, Danish Lakhani, stated that financial technology was the most promising emerging sector with massive prospects in the Pakistani region. Chief Executive Officer Danish Lakhani had previously initiated StormFiber, the nation’s most extensive fibre broadband service, making him the business leader of choice to head NayaPay.
NayaPay is currently fabricating a payment portal for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) comparable in functionality to WeChatPay, Venmo, and Square. The firm is focused on developing five million consumers and 300,000 merchants in five years, Mr Danish Lakhani stated.
Seasoned institutional and individual investors, Lakson Group, Saison Capital, Warren Hogarth of Empower Finance, and Waleed Saigol’s Maple Leaf Capital, participated in NayaPay’s seed funding round.
Faisal Aftab, Co-Founder at Zayn Capital, stated that as the firms were commencing to emerge, Pakistani fintech companies held the advantage of learning from their contemporaries and fabricating better-informed strategic wagers.
The strategy to release NayaPay was conceived during Lakhani’s visits to China, where social networking and payment applications like AliPay and WeChat Pay are vastly used. Lakhani was leading Cybernet at the time, a broadband firm he assisted building from scratch, and which has matured to emerge as the most prominent Internet and Data Communication Network Service Provider.
Lakhani stated that he was motivated by the hassle-free utilisation of the Chinese super applications and decided to imitate the model with NayaPay, which he expects to revolutionise the payments ecosystem in Pakistan.
NayaPay has already taken over the required authorisations, including the State Bank of Pakistan’s E-Money Institution license.
The firm targets to possess 5 million users over the next five years and progress the number of digital payments, which he stated will affect other industries like eCommerce as more individuals utilise the NayaPay wallet to facilitate online transactions.
Lakhani stated that online shopping accounts for merely 2% of Pakistani retail and is fast maturing at a 15% CAGR. Hence, there lies a colossal demand that has been amplified owing to the prevalent COVID19 pandemic. For instance, restaurants that used to depend on a POS terminal for acceptance are now initiating payment gateways for online sales.
The firm is also brainstorming to familiarise other digital fiscal services like investment and lending.
About NayaPay
NayaPay is the ultimate wallet for the definitive needs of all its clients. Consumers can send money to friends and family by avoiding extra expenses on NayaPay. In addition, NayaPay offers a Visa debit card spontaneously for clients to utilise online, in-store, and international payments.
The NayaPay Arc facilitates digital payments and fiscal management tools to entrepreneurs. The portal is designed to be user-centric and is etched with solid on-ground support. By assisting small businesses to harness the power of technology, the firm is a staunch go-getter of transformation within the Pakistani economy.
