News Update Times

• KCFR hosted exclusive panel discussion on Financial Inclusion at WEF

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)  Banking the unbanked population through digitized financial inclusion may bring positive change in the lives of the underprivileged populations and the national economy. This was stated by banking leaders and financial experts while sharing their views during a panel discussion “Digital Affairs: Financial Inclusion in Pakistan” hosted by Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR) in association with Swiss Asian Chamber of Commerce at Pakistan’s Pavilion on the sidelines of World Economic Forum Davos last week.

The panel comprised of lead bankers including the keynote speaker Zafar Masood, President Bank of Punjab (BoP), Shazad Dada, President United Bank Ltd (UBL), Kabir Naqvi, President U Microfinance Bank (UBank), Salman Ali, CEO VRG, Aftab Rizvi, Risk Associates, and Imad Chishti, CEO Futafut. The discussion was moderated by Ali Shah, CEO iPath while a large number of potential investors and economic experts were present in the audience.  

Ikram Sehgal, Chairman Karachi Council on Foreign Relations (KCFR) & Pathfinder Group of Companies welcomed the guests and briefed the audience regarding the efforts being made by his team to build a positive image of Pakistan globally. Sehgal extended his gratitude to the people who stood beside his team in making such patriotic efforts. While sharing his viewpoint on the panel discussion topic, KCFR Chairman said “banking the unbanked is a huge challenge but it may lead us to the glory of economic stability and national growth”. Bringing the poorest members of the society into the mainstream of banking is the most important achievement and it seems to be possible through financial inclusion equipped with digital facilities, he added.

Delivering his keynote address, BOP President Zafar Masood shared an overview of the banking sector in Pakistan and mentioned that despite massive challenges, Pakistan went way ahead of many other countries in terms of economic success. BOP President said that Pakistan has been committed to development goals and huge strides were being taken by the country in terms of national and international development goals including UN’s sustainable development goals. Masood also pointed out major hurdles which were being faced by Pakistan’s financial sector in banking the unbanked. While mentioning different proportions of Pakistan’s population, he said that Pakistan’s 61 percent population is between the 15-54 age group which would be most suitable for using the banking services while 35 percent of the Pakistani population is below 15 years of age and they would be ready for tomorrow’s banking. Terming financial inclusion as a heart-touching subject, BOP President said “true financial inclusion without functional deployment of a digital solution is almost impossible”. Zafar Masood stated that Punjab Bank is taking various revolutionary measures to bring non-banking customers into the national mainstream banking. Expressing his concerns BOP President said that despite being 51 percent of the total population, only 17 percent of women are using banking services. He said that such a large and significant section of the population could be included in the banking circle only through digitized financial inclusion and several steps were being taken in this regard. Masood also acknowledged KCFR Chairman Ikram Sehgal and his team for their patriotic efforts in making such events a massive success around the globe.

UBL President Shazad Dada, while sharing his views said that Pakistan is one of the fastest-growing countries and the conditions are very conducive to investment. Discussing the importance of financial inclusion in Pakistan, he said that there are many reasons for the decline in the use of traditional banking services, the most important of which is accessibility as most of the country’s population lives in rural areas. He said that there are only 10 branches for 100,000 people in Pakistan whereas in Asia this rate is close to 16. In such a situation, financial inclusion can be very useful, especially when the proper use of digital resources is ensured.

While responding to a question on the importance of digital services in financial inclusion, Kabir Naqvi, President UBank shared some valid facts and ground realities with the audience. According to him, understanding the customer and their requirements would be the most important factor in terms of an effective financial inclusion setup. He elaborated the efforts being made by UBank to reach the unbanked rural population through establishing far-flung branches where UBank officials provide direct trainings and awareness to the customers on financial inclusion and usage of digital resources.

Salman Ali, CEO VRG offered a very different perspective on financial inclusion. He told the audience that 192 million people in Pakistan use mobile phones and 41 percent of them have smartphones while the rest use simple feature phones. Salman said that the majority of people using feature phones is actually unbanked due to certain reasons while the financial inclusion can prove to be of utmost importance for them. VRG is working in this regard providing the customers a many-to-many business solution which enables them to open an account in any major bank by using a USSD code on their feature phone without internet.

Aftab Rizvi of Risk Associates, CEO FutaFut Imad Chishti, and Asif Riaz, Member Bank of Punjab also expressed their views on the occasion.

Pakistan (Nut Desk) National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) is now facilitating farmers in acquiring loans through Electronic Warehouse Receipt Financing (EWRF). The simple process will allow farmers to open their account, provide collateral and receive the loan up to 70% of the collateral’s price.

EWRF system aims to make farmers’ journey easy and profitable from crop cultivation till sale. The loan facility can be obtained for a period of up to 6 months by securing electronic warehouse receipt as collateral.

To open an account in the electronic warehouse receipt the farmers can contact the warehouse operator of Naymat Collateral Company Management with their CNIC and photo. After account opening, Farmers can store their products in the relevant warehouse, where after confirming the quality and quantity, the warehouse receipt will be issued. Farmers can use this receipt to obtain the loan from the bank where required support will be extended to complete documentation process to avail loan facility as per needs.

EWRF also facilitate the applicant to pay back the dues when the farmers have fair price for crops, thus giving them the advantage to have return on their harvest after paying warehouse rent and Naymat collateral fee.

 

(NUT DESK) Like belching at a child’s piano recital, insulting open RAN is not considered seemly for a member of the telecom establishment. The industry has more or less decided the young technology will be a hit, almost regardless of its merits. For all they could lose, Ericsson and Nokia typically want to be seen as receptive, even as dutiful mentors. Criticize or heckle and they risk upsetting the audience. All of which makes Tommi Uitto’s airing of doubts look brave.

Nokia has previously given open RAN a much warmer reception than either Ericsson (friendly while cautious) or Huawei (downright aloof). But the head of its mobile business does not sound entirely impressed. Open RAN stands little chance of boosting competition or lowering costs, and working with other suppliers on multivendor deployments remains too difficult, he told Light Reading during a meeting in central London.

Uitto must know that open RAN’s enthusiasts will parade his criticisms as evidence of Nokia backsliding. Often conflated with virtualization, open RAN is basically about unlocking some of the interface gates between different parts of the radio access network so operators can welcome in a mix of suppliers.

In its absence, telcos have tended to rely on one big supplier to provide everything. If they could make one vendor’s radios operate with another’s IT resources, they could work with specialists and spur competition in a market still dominated by Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia – or so they believe. Uitto is not convinced. “There is an assumption that more suppliers is more competition and prices come down, which I am not sure will happen,” he said. “Is the cake big enough for ten different suppliers? There used to be ten different basestation suppliers, but we have gravitated to a smaller number.”

The Finnish vendor itself comprises six-and-a-half basestation suppliers after multiple rounds of consolidation, according to the Nokia executive. Besides its own historical business, those now include Alcatel, Lucent, Motorola, Nortel, Panasonic and Nortel’s W-CDMA business. “They all disappeared because they could not make it – there was not enough scale and volume to survive,” said Uitto. Uitto is equally dismissive of claims that open RAN networks will have cost advantages over the traditional variety. “Sometimes people think open RAN will be cheap. No, it’s not.

There’s nothing that would make it inherently cheap because it is 3GPP-compliant basestations, but additionally it has the particular software-made open interfaces,” he said. “Actually, in some early versions from the open RAN challengers, they even had to use FPGAs to make those open interfaces, just as we did in our first 5G products, and that certainly does not make your product cheap.” Chipmakers targeting the open RAN market have clearly been adapting their products.

An original belief that baseband processing could be done effectively on general purpose processors (a market in which Intel is dominant) has been abandoned, according to Uitto. “The first thing the industry learned was that it results in a very expensive product, because these are not especially good in baseband,” he said. After experimenting with FPGAs, chip developers are now working on different types of hardware accelerators based on more customized silicon.

 

Cordoba Logistics & Ventures Limited (“CLVL”) collaborate with foodpanda to provide bikes for riders

Karachi (Nut Desk) Cordoba Logistics & Ventures Limited (“CLVL”) and foodpanda Pakistan signed an MoU under which CLVL will facilitate foodpanda riders in acquiring motorcycles on an affordable basis to operate on the platform. The partnership extends across the country, offering foodpanda riders the necessary means to participate in the growing e-commerce sector, creating sustainable economic opportunities and driving financial inclusion.

The program also aligns well with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 8, focusing on ‘decent work and economic growth’, and once launched will help create more flexible working opportunities across the community. The pilot project will start in June with an aim to scale it across Pakistan over the next several months.

Speaking on the occasion, Chairman CLVL, Mr. Zeshan Afzal said: “This strategic partnership to implement SDG – 8, will promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth, create flexible economic opportunities, and decent work for all. We hope that this initiative will prove to be a stepping stone for even greater collaborations between both the organisations.”

“Opportunities like these help fulfill the ever growing demand for creating avenues of livelihood for the youth,” said Muntaqa Peracha, Managing Director foodpanda Pakistan. “I am glad that this collaboration will further facilitate our existing and potential riders as we continue striving for excellence and vow to support our heroes.”

 

 

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)  OPPO launches the F21 Pro 5G in Pakistan, enthralling the consumer with its industry-first Dual Orbit Lights, a 6nm 5G chipset, Bokeh Flare Portrait and much more! Consumers can now make pre-orders at stores nationwide and at ‘Daraz’ with a retail price of PKR 69,999/-.

But that’s not all, there is also an exciting offer for the consumers on every pre-order of OPPO F21 Pro 5G, the buyer will get a gift box along with Rs.3500 off on OPPO Band Style and if ordering from Daraz official store the buyer will get a car flash charger for free.

Powerful 5G Performance for Any Occasion

OPPO F21 Pro 5G is one of the first devices to be powered by the Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 695 5G Mobile Platform built on a 6nm process. F21 Pro 5G also features a large 4,500mAh battery and 33W flash charging that enables the device to be 100% charged in 63 minutes, or make three hours of calls on a charge of just five minutes.

F21 Pro 5G comes with 8GB of RAM and 128GB ROM as standard. When used with OPPO’s RAM Expansion technology, the smartphone’s original 8GB of RAM can be supplemented with a massive 5GB by temporarily allocating ROM, enabling multiple memory-heavy apps to be run simultaneously with less lag.

OPPO’s Dual Orbit Lights

OPPO F21 Pro 5G marks the debut of OPPO’s Dual Orbit Lights, which are discreetly integrated behind the two primary cameras. When turned on, the Dual Orbit Lights resemble two heavenly rings descending from the night sky.

The Dual Orbit Lights light up or blink in electric blue, light blue, cyan blue or baby blue depending on different scenarios, for example when the phone is powering on, charging, receiving an incoming call or unread notification, as well as launching a game.

Capture Your Diverse Styles in Portrait

F21 Pro 5G features a 64MP High-Res Main Camera, a 2MP Macro Camera, a 2MP Depth Camera, and a 16MP Front Camera alongside a series of impressive imaging features, such as Bokeh Flare Portrait, Selfie HDR, AI Palettes, AI Color Portrait 2, Portrait Retouching and other features designed for creativity.

The Bokeh Flare Portrait allows users to capture portrait images with rich Bokeh light spots just like a high-end DSLR camera. It also retouches human hair and shirt details at the pixel level, making them appear exceptionally clear against simple backgrounds.

The Selfie HDR captures clear selfies in dimly lit or backlit surroundings. The front camera automatically detects background light and utilizes an algorithm to suppress bright light when a backlit face or a bright background is detected, ensuring both the subject and background are captured in beautiful detail.

Multidimensional Design for Every Mood

Continuing the sleek and compact design of the F series, F21 Pro 5G introduces an Ultra-Slim Retro Design and two new colors: Rainbow Spectrum and Cosmic Black.

A three-layer of texture and two layers of coating process give the back cover a matte finish with a glittery appearance. The three-layer texture includes an innermost scattering grain, interlayer of SG grain, and an outermost glossy-and-matte grain.

The OPPO F21 Pro 5G is the first smartphone to use this particular spliced gloss and matte textures, which replace the redundant base material typically found around the camera module on other smartphones.

All-Round Smoother Experience with ColorOS 12

OPPO F21 Pro 5G is one of the first smartphones to receive the top-level A rating in the TÜV SÜD 36-Month Fluency certification. The certification is conducted by technical inspection association TÜV SÜD to assess the continued fluency of electronic devices based on two or three years of use.

OPPO F21 Pro 5G is one of the first smartphones to come with ColorOS 12 preinstalled out of the box. Air Gestures 10 allow users to answer calls, mute calls, or scroll pages by swiping their hands in the air, while features including AI System Booster, Quick Startup 11, Game Focus Mode, and AI Frame Rate Stabilizer 12 provide a seamless and immersive entertainment experience for users.

CM Sindh highlights investment opportunities in tourism and other sectors

Gorakh Hills station to be linked with Karachi through bullet train

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) Syed Murad Ali Shah Chief Minister Sindh urged the investors to explore Sindh’s historic and compelling beauty by investing in the tourism sites across the province. CM presented the investment profile of the province at the “Investment in Sindh” session, held on the sidelines of World Economic Forum last week at Davos.  

Sindh Investment Session was organized by the Pathfinder Group of Companies. The conference was attended by Chairman Pathfinder Group Ikram Sehgal, Co-Chairman Pathfinder Group Zarrar Sehgal, Special Assistant to CM Sindh on Investment Syed Qasim Naveed Qamar and DG Private Public Partnership Assad Zamin, while a large number of potential investors and government officials were also present. Ikram Sehgal delivered a welcome note and introduced the Chief Minister. 

The Chief Minister addressing the conference highlighted some major steps taken by Sindh government to ease international investors. CM assured the investors of fair policies, transparency and attractive economic returns. We are working hard to make the province investment-friendly to improve provincial economy by creating employment and opportunities, he said. 

A detailed presentation was shared with the audience offering them different potential sectors for investment. Eco-friendly Tourism, Water & Environment, Trade & Development, Education & Technology, Urban ecosystem and food security. Around 90 percent of these projects would be completed under Private Public Partnership while few of them would be completed in the traditional way. According to provincial government, an investment of approximately USD 6 billion would be utilized. 

By taking the advantage of Sindh’s rich tourism profile, provincial government has decided to invite local & international investments for a variety of tourism projects including up gradation of Gorkh Hills Station site, KMC Beachfront project, Thar Tourism Project and Keenjhar Lake Project. All these tourism projects would cost around USD 680 Million. A bullet train is being planned to ease the commute of 400 kilometers between Karachi and the inviting Gorakh Hills.