Visa, Khazana Enterprise sign MoU to adopt digital payment solution

KARACHI: Visa, the world leader in digital payments, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Khazana Enterprise, a cloud-native technology provider for the government of Pakistan, in a strategic step towards driving digital transformation across the government sector in support of Pakistan’s cashless future agenda, a statement said.

The MoU included a number of offerings, including best practices between Visa and Khazana, which is serving the leading government technology providers and various other government organisations for the provision of products and services across government entities, to boost the digitalisation of government’s collection and disbursement processes.

Paving the way for a long-term cooperation, the MoU brings together Visa’s network of strategy and Khazana Enterprise’s technological innovation to help empower the government entities, small and medium businesses and fuelling economic growth with the power of digital payments.

The MoU is set to reinforce the collective objectives of both Visa and Khazana, expanding access to the financial tools and knowledge for the advancement of financial inclusion.

Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for North Africa, Levant and Pakistan, said: “At Visa, we support the companies that develop solutions to power seamless money movement. We are pleased to partner with Khazana Enterprise to digitalise the government payments, accelerating the move to digital in line with our commitment to the financial empowerment and the government of Pakistan’s steady progress towards a cashless economy.”

“We are confident that the convergence of Visa’s deep payments expertise with Khazana’s innovative technology will create limitless possibilities for the benefit of the consumers and businesses across Pakistan, who are increasingly favouring digital payment options,” she said.

Svyatoslav Senyuta, head of Visa Government Solutions, CEMEA, said: “The egovernment platforms are simplifying how citizens and businesses interact with many government departments and ministries. I am super excited that our engagement with Khazana can lead us on transformational journey of service delivery to be efficient and convenient public services and their transition to online environment improving citizen experience in Pakistan.”

“Visa will support Khazana for all the extended support in terms of best practices, global case studies and proven architecture for the implementation of enabling digital government ecosystem so that citizens and businesses pay and get paid with a great user experience,” he added.

Shafique Ur Rehman, director and chief revenue officer, said: “Leveraging public-private partnerships to bring government payments into the digital age, Visa and Khazana Enterprise aim at setting the stage for electronic disbursements, facilitating making or receiving payments to or from the government. By better integrating services and payments, the companies also seek to enhance the entire journey of applying for benefits, as more government entities in Pakistan adopt an omni channel approach.”

Ahsan Rasheed Khan, Khazana Enterprise’s chief commercial officer, said: “We are excited to start this journey with Visa and lay the foundation step in our partnership for automating government-based payments. We are on a mission to democratise the payment services and infrastructure for Pakistan’s government sector by providing agile, innovative and highly secure solutions and services to make this a reality. This partnership will leverage on the vast Visa expertise for providing innovative payment solutions bringing inclusivity across all government-related payments for the end consumers.”