Pakistan-based Fintech ABHI and its clients, employees, users, and investors have reportedly been making donations using its platform. These funds are meant to support the ongoing flood relief efforts, which is being carried out with assistance from NGOs such as JDC, Al-Khidmat, and Saylani who are focused on offering relief to flood victims in the Asian country.
According to local sources, this is the first time in Pakistan that employed citizens who are also ABHI clients may support families impacted by floods. Assistance is provided by donating from their earned but not yet paid salaries. Funds are donated directly from the mobile app within a few seconds via ABHI Dost – a feature that allows users to transfer the donations directly to JDC, Al-Khidmat, or Saylani’s bank accounts.
During this time of emergency, ABHI is focused on extending support to affected families and communities as they try to recover from this unprecedented situation. With the assistance of the donations, partner NGOs will offer emergency relief such as shelter, household supplies, and food items.
ABHI’s management noted that they’re here to support Pakistani residents during these challenging times. Notably, people throughout the world have increasingly been donating to financially support people.
Established last year, ABHI claims to be one of Pakistan’s very first financial wellness platforms that supports local companies and their workers via earned wage access, payroll financing, payroll processing, as well as invoice factoring.
Via EWA, workers are able to transfer their earned income to their bank accounts/digital wallets in about 30 seconds. The firm claims it has signed up over 280 companies.
As covered last year, Pakistan has managed to attract a considerable amount of new capital to support its evolving Fintech sector and emerging startups. The significant increase in new funding actually began following the COVID-19 outbreak which led to many more consumers transacting online instead of visiting physical business locations.
As reported in 2021, Khadim Ali Shah Bukhari Securities Pvt.’s Fintech trading app KTrade and ex- Morgan Stanley asset manager Omair Ansari’s early wage access platform have managed to acquire $6.6 million in capital, which notably adds to the $19.3 million in funding for the nation’s high-potential startups during Q1 2021.
As reported last month, Karachi-headquartered Fintech firm Safepay HQ is reportedly going live with Cybersource (a product of payments service provider Visa) in order to bring Pakistani merchants new ways to allow their clients to pay them online.
Safepay is a payment service provider that has reportedly received pilot approval from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and has been active in the market for the past few years.
Safepay’s core product offering to a merchant is a “one-window” solution that enables clients to make payments online via the merchant’s official website using their bank account, mobile wallet and also their Visa or Mastercards.