News Update Times

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)  The fastest-growing Chinese smartphone brand, TECNO, recently started its #ShowYourSpark TikTok campaign, which has received over Eight Million (8M) views on TikTok alone. Many prominent TikTokers including Haris Ali and Hira khan were a part of this campaign, with thousands of others joining the trend with their own fun videos.

The trend was initiated for TECNO’s latest Spark 8C smartphone. The phone comes in two variants, 4+128GB (PKR 23,999) and 3+64GB (PKR 19,499).  Spark 8C is equipped with a 13MP Rear AI dual camera, 8MP Front Camera, 6.56” HD+ Dot Notch Display, 90Hz refresh rate, and 5000mAh Battery. However, the Memory fusion technology makes Spark 8C stand out from its competitors.

The main highlight of the phone is its Expandable Memory. With the Memory Fusion Technology, the Spark 8C RAM can be increased by 3GB. Hence, the 4+128GB variant can be expanded to 7+128GB and the 3+64GB variant can be expanded to 6+64GB. Spark 8C comes in four stylish colors – Magnetic Black, Turquoise Cyan, Iris Purple, and Diamond Grey.

And that’s not all, Spark 8C introduces new innovative features such as Customized Beauty, Rear Camera decoration, and Fingerprint sensor design. SOPLAY – a special audio recording feature and some other chic features have also been added to this new device. These features are an amazing addition for youngsters to help them produce unique music videos.

Kelvin Zeng, CEO of TECNO Mobile Pakistan, shared his views

“We at TECNO aim to bring innovation not only in technology but the way this technology can be used. Our recent #ShowYourSpark TikTok campaign went viral in just a few hours and by now it has over Eight Million Views. This is the amazing response from our fans and customers that keeps us going and makes us work harder to bring the best for them.”

As the campaign gained success in such a short time, one could find hundreds of TikTok users enjoy dancing to the catchy tune. Famous TikTokers being a part of this campaign added to its popularity and helped it reach thousands of others in no time. The best videos were shared and a few lucky winners will get a chance to Win a new Spark 8C.

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) Rain Financial, Inc. a global leading cryptocurrency trading platform, has appointed Zeeshan Ahmed as its Country General Manager, Pakistan.  While Rain is not yet operational in Pakistan, it will be advocating for the regulation and seek licensing in the country. 

Zeeshan is a senior management professional leading turnaround and growth strategies. With a career span of over 16 years, 7 of which were spent at strategic C level positions, he most recently worked as the Chief Executive Officer for Askari Enterprises (A subsidiary of AWT). 

Commenting on his appointment Zeeshan said “I am thrilled to be joining Rain Pakistan at this pivotal time for the blockchain and crypto industry. I look forward to working with the talented team at Rain and developing a licensed and regulated cryptoasset exchange in Pakistan”. 

This announcement comes just weeks after Rain Financial Inc. secured USD 110 million Series B funding. The round was co-led by Paradigm and Kleiner Perkins with participation from numerous parties including Coinbase Ventures, Global Founders Capital, MEVP, Cadenza Ventures, JIMCO, and CMT Digital. Founded in 2017 by Abdullah Almoaiqel, AJ Nelson, Joseph Dallago, and Yehia Badawy, Rain will utilize this investment to further expand licensing in other countries and regions, enhancing its technology and continuing to grow the team as cryptocurrency adoption increases globally. 

Rain Financial Inc. and its group has done over USD 2 billion worth of transactions, amassed over 200,000 active users, and now has over 500 employees, with a focus on growing its team even further across the region, by the end of 2022. 

With changing consumer behavior and increasing demand in the interest of crypto, Rain is committed to investing in building a platform that is simplified and easy to use. 

 

Jazz commits to increase female mobile broadband users, accelerates efforts to promote diversity & inclusion at the workplace

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) Aimed at enabling more women to access health, financial, and other life-enhancing services, Pakistan’s leading digital operator Jazz has committed with GSMA Connected Women initiative to increase the proportion of female broadband users on its network by 8% by the end of next year with a dedicated focus on female smart phone ownership. The commitment was announced by Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim during the ‘Power to be You’ event held at Jazz Digital Headquarters in Islamabad.

The company’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) statement was unveiled at the event along with key initiatives towards empowering women at the workplace. Jazz has announced six months phase back support for new mothers on top of the already available six month paid maternity leave, an executive program on women leadership in collaboration with LUMS, and dedicated offsite learning retreats for women. Moreover, an MoU was signed with Chughtai Labs for the provision of the Pink Card which offers Jazz employees and their families a 50% discount on women related medical tests.

The event featured multiple activities, interviews, and panel discussions from industry experts including Dr. Omar Chugtai, Chughtai Lab; Dr. Sadia Nadeem, FAST School of Management; and Dr. Rakshinda Perveen, a social entrepreneur. Ayesha Raza, Co-founder of Abey Khao, a fast-food café and a startup scaled under Pakistan’s premier accelerator program Jazzxlr8, also inspired the audience with her entrepreneurship journey and how her venture is promoting social inclusion of people with hearing impairments by providing them employment opportunities.

Addressing the audience during her keynote, Dr Sania Nishtar said that women’s digital and financial inclusion is critical for not just their social protection but also to help form an inclusive and progressive society. She also lauded the role of telecom industry in accelerating digitalization across various sectors and digitally transforming citizen services.

Aamir Ibrahim, CEO Jazz reiterated the importance of adopting a collective approach to build a society where women feel empowered, safe and contribute to all areas of life. “Whilst we are nurturing a culture of equal opportunities at Jazz, externally we are empowering Pakistani women digitally with our products, services and sustainability initiatives enabling them to access health, financial and other life-enhancing services.”

Through various initiatives, Jazz is driving digital gender equality. The company has programs in place to enhance digital literacy among girls and maximize female led enterprises in the startup ecosystem. Jazz has also collaborated with Meta to launch an online safety booklet for Pakistani users, especially women, to help them understand the dynamics of digital space better and develop responsible online behavior to cope with the modern-day challenges of the digital world, voicing their thoughts while ensuring safety.

             

 

Meezan Bank and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) join hands for Digitalization of Consumer Bill Collection in Punjab, KPK and AJ&K

Lahore (Nut Desk) Meezan Bank, Pakistan’s leading Islamic bank has recently signed an agreement with Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL), the largest integrated gas company in North Central Pakistan, to enable digitalization of consumer bill collection via the Bank’s state-of-the-art Transaction Banking Solution (eBiz+).

The agreement was signed by Mr. Irfan Siddiqui – Founding President & CEO, Meezan Bank and Mr. Ali J. Hamdani – Managing Director & CEO, SNGPL in the presence of other key management members including Mr. Ariful Islam – Deputy CEO, Mr. Abdullah Ahmed – Group Head Corporate & Institutional Banking, Mr. M. Saqib Ashraf – Head Transaction Banking and Mr. M. Munir – Head Payments & Cash Management from Meezan Bank, and Mr. Faisal Iqbal – Chief Financial Officer, SNGPL.

As per the agreement, Meezan Bank will provide transaction banking services (eBiz+) to SNGPL enabling payment of gas bills by the residents of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJ&K) via e-channels and branch banking avenues offered by the Bank.

On this occasion, Mr. Ali J. Hamdani shared SNGPL’s ambition to become a leader in sourcing energy across Pakistan while providing ease of access to its consumers via eBiz+ collection services.

Mr. Irfan Siddiqui, also commented on the occasion, stating, “The agreement between Meezan Bank and SNGPL will not only strengthen the Bank’s transaction banking portfolio but will also improve the bill collection process by making it more accessible to millions. SNGPL is already a trusted corporate client for the Bank and this agreement further strengthens our relationship.”

Bank Alfalah and PAKISTAN FREELANCERS ASSOCIATION (PAFLA) collaborate to provide Digital Payments and Collection Infrastructure to Freelancers in Pakistan

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir)  Bank Alfalah has partnered with Pakistan Freelancers Association (PAFLA) to facilitate digital payments and collections for freelancers. Under the partnership, PAFLA will acquire the ability to enable freelancers in selling services globally through an integration with Alfa Payment Gateway. This platform will facilitate a robust digital payments and collection mechanism through support from Bank Alfalah’s strong and reliable infrastructure.

Freelancers contribute greatly to Pakistan’s economy and help in building a progressive reputation for the country. The Alfa Payment Gateway provides salient features to freelancers that include instant and digital onboarding, no setup, annual or maintenance fee, freelancer digital accounts, and a pay-by-link facility which will provide immense convenience to individuals offering their services to clients online.  Bank Alfalah Freelancers Digital Current Account will be a completely digital account to be opened via Bank Alfalah Mobile App and does not require any visits to the branches.

Alfa Payment Gateway is a unique product that will now allow freelancers aiming to go online through an extensive ecosystem an avenue to work efficiently with international clients and collect payments seamlessly. Together, Bank Alfalah and PAFLA will provide distinct opportunities for freelancers that are bringing in valuable foreign exchange to Pakistan. The partnership is designed to offer solutions that enable freelancers to process and collect payments in a simple, secure and cost-efficient manner from their customers via multiple payment modes e.g. Credit/Debit cards, Bank Accounts and Wallets.

Group Head – Digital Banking Group Yahya Khan was pleased to commemorate this partnership and stated “Bank Alfalah through its diverse and ever-evolving services portfolio is empowering freelancers to grow and prosper. This partnership is another step towards our objective to offer seamless services and solutions to customers in an efficient manner. It highlights our commitment to the Freelancers’ community and thus play our part in strengthening Pakistan’s economy and the future.” 

Lahore (Nut Desk)

Salaam Takaful Limited, the largest general takaful operator and the first Islamic Insurtech in Pakistan, has built a reputation of introducing new and innovative products to the market. Besides offering all the regular general takaful coverages like motor, health, travel, fire, marine and all other usual offerings, they are committed to fill gaps with innovative products such as medical malpractice takaful, loss of employment takaful, livestock takaful and parametric based crop takaful, to name a few.

Parametric crop takaful is the newest addition to its portfolio. Crop farmers, being the backbone of Pakistan’s economy, play a crucial role in the ecosystem, and are quite prone to losses due to climate change, natural calamities and pest attacks. Salaam Takaful has picked up on their issues and has devised a weather index based solution on parametric basis backed with satellite technology and advisory service which enables them to serve farmers in record time.

Parametric crop takaful works on satellite and weather tracking technology and in the event a parameter such as excess rainfall (or absence of it) gets triggered, claim payouts are also triggered automatically to the farmers. In this way, a farmer is not required to file the claim and go through the hefty process to get the benefit. Moreover, multiple perils can be parameterized and indexed using this technology and it is highly customizable hence enable farmers to be more resilient to climate change.  

Salaam Takaful has partnered with WaterSprint Ltd. to reach a bigger fraternity of farmers and to enhance the ambit of services being provided to them. Salaam Takaful and WaterSprint have jointly developed a comprehensive app to facilitate farmers on multiple fronts.

As part of its regulatory sandbox initiative to test Parametric Takaful, Salaam Takaful has initiated parametric crop takaful coverage to 61 farmers in District Rahim Yar Khan. They have collaborated with REEDS (Rural Education & Economic Development Society) Pakistan to implement this plan for the benefit of farmers. This initiative was very well received by farmers who appreciated Salaam Takaful’s step to come up with such innovative ideas and products.

A ‘coverage certificates distribution’ ceremony was held in Rahim Yar Khan. On this occasion, Mr. Umair Ismail from Salaam Takaful Limited, Mr. Naveed Alam from WaterSprint Ltd. and Mr. Shahid Saleem from REEDS Pakistan, pledged to further strengthen this partnership and work together for the betterment of farmers.