In an effort to promote Digital Financial Services (DFS) in Pakistan, National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (NIFT), an existing Payment System Operator/Provider (PSO/PSP) offering nation-wide cheque clearing services, has signed an agreement with Bank Alfalah, one of Pakistan's leading and progressive banks, to facilitate settlement services for mobile/electronic commerce payments (Digital Commerce Payments) through NIFT's DFS platform under the brand name "NIFT ePay" using bank accounts.

Through this partnership, NIFT ePay and Bank Alfalah will enable for the first time in Pakistan, the use of bank accounts & wallets to execute secure and interoperable digital commerce payments. Banking customers maintaining their account with any member bank of NIFT E-payment scheme will be able to use this facility.

Bank Alfalah, being one of the leading merchant acquiring banks in Pakistan and a trusted name in payments will act as the settlement bank among NIFT ePay member banks in Pakistan. The settlement bank will also support NIFT for handling disputes/claims e.g. duplicate processing for a seamless customer experience across the industry.

The agreement was signed by Haider Wahab, CEO, NIFT and Mehreen Ahmed, Group Head - Retail Banking, Bank Alfalah in the presence of teams from both entities.

Speaking on the occasion, Haider Wahab- CEO NIFT said, "Growth of Digital Payments is certain, given the focus and initiatives taken by State Bank of Pakistan and the Government on driving digitization and financial inclusion in Pakistan. The recently launched National Payment Systems Strategy (NPSS) and the MPG initiative by SBP lays out a clear and solid framework for a digital payments network in the country, NIFT looks to embracing these initiatives and the tremendous opportunities this will bring about.

NIFT has been providing consistent services to the financial industry over the past two decades and its time that we play our role in creating a reliable, secure, and interoperable payments systems which enable different digital payments use cases in Pakistan. We are very excited venturing into these new partnerships with the industry to offer new range of Digital Financial Services providing same level of confidence that is expected from NIFT by the industry.

We are pleased to sign up Bank Alfalah as NIFT ePay settlement bank having strong and common understanding of managing digital payment operations. The bank over the years has demonstrated progressive innovation around digital services which forms the common bridge between the two organizations."

Mehreen Ahmed remarked, "Bank Alfalah is proud to be an enabler for an innovative & first of its kind solution being launched by NIFT. We are a dominant player in the payments and digital space, and will continue to play our role in spearheading and facilitating payments in the country. Through this partnership, while we will be at the core of enabling the payments industry for a new service, I am also excited that this will open up a new transaction set for the bank's account & wallet holders."-PR