An agreement has been reached between the Government of Pakistan and PayPal, which operates a worldwide online payment system that supports online money transfers, easing the process of receiving money for over one million freelancers in the country.

Caretaker Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Umar Saif shared this development in conversation with reporters in Islamabad on Friday, Dawn News reported.

“PayPal is not coming to Pakistan but an agreement has been reached under which the remittances would be channelised from Paypal through a third party,” he clarified.

PayPal, an American multinational financial technology company, is operating in as many as 190 markets of the world.

The formal launching ceremony is scheduled for January 11. The ministry was also planning to provide smartphones to customers in easy instalments and conduct standardised quality test for IT graduates next week.

For the past many years, freelancers in Pakistan have demanded that the online payment system should be allowed in Pakistan. In this regard, former finance minister Asad Umar had also made efforts. But they never materialised.

In 2019, officials refused to come to Pakistan for at least three years due to a lack of business opportunities in the country. In the same year, a local newspaper reported that if PayPal came to Pakistan it would facilitate around 200,000 freelancers and over 7,000 registered small and medium enterprises.

“We worked with the SIFC and the State Bank to make a big policy intervention, allowing IT companies to keep 50 per cent of their export revenue in dollars in an account in Pakistan and make their international expenses without any restrictions from this amount,” Saif said and added that IT companies were beginning to bring their dollars back home.

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He shared that the country’s export revenue increased by 13 per cent in one month.

Saif added that an initiative to provide smartphones under easy instalments would start on January 12. “Jazz is planning to offer iPhone in instalments,” he added.

In case of failure to pay instalment, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority would block the handset on the pattern of device identification, registration and blocking system.

Around 1.5 million individuals are working in the online economy in Pakistan, which means the country ranks second in the largest online workforce