Tuesday, December 05 2023

Software company raises $1.6m
CodeNinja, a technology solutions provider, has secured an investment of $1.6 million from sAi Venture Capital, a Lahore-based technology venture investor, and its strategic partners Plutus21 Capital and affiliates. “With this investment, we’ve merged our natural advantages in the technology sector with venture principals. CodeNinja’s ability to partner with global enterprise clients and doing value addition work makes us very excited about their growth potential,” a press release quoted Ahsan Jamil, managing partner of sAi Venture Capital, as saying. “Unlocking the export potential requires going beyond capital, and we will be providing structured support, paving the way for our companies to be global technology players.” said Mr Jamil. CodeNinja is one of the fastest-growing technology companies in Pakistan, currently managing its operations via three regional offices and meeting a 100 per cent year-on-year growth rate for the last couple of years.
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Thursday, November 30 2023

Jazz, IT minister discuss investment
Caretaker IT Minister Umar Saif and the group chief executive officer of VEON, the parent company of Jazz Pakistan, met on Wednesday to discuss the company’s plans and the challenges facing the country’s telecom industry, primarily a high cost of doing business. Mr Saif said on X, formerly Twitter, that the discussion focused on four issues, including instalments-based smartphones in Pakistan, the role of Jazz in financial inclusion and moving towards a cashless economy, upcoming spectrum auction and the 5G rollout, and value-added services for citizens with innovative investments in EdTech, AgriTech and FinTech. During the meeting, the minister stressed that providing citizens with quality telecom services was the government’s topmost priority. VEON CEO Kaan Terzioglu, who was accompanied by Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim and other VEON officials, presented a comprehensive overview of Jazz’s substantial investments in Pakistan, surpassing $10.6 billion. These investments focus on advancing the country’s digital infrastructure, including mobile broadband expansion, fintech JazzCash, cloud and cybersecurity platform Garaj, and various digital lifestyle services like Tamasha and BiP.
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Friday, November 24 2023

Govt eyes $10bn IT exports in 3 years
Care­taker Minister for Infor­mation Technology and Telecommunications Dr Umar Saif unveiled the first IT and ITeS Export Strategy on Thursday, aiming to increase IT exports to $10 billion in the next three years. Dr Saif stated that the Pakistan Software Export Board, under the Ministry of IT and Telecomm­unication, collaborated with Pricewater­house­Coo­pers (PwC) and other international partners, including faculty from the University of Oxford, to develop “this strategy, which closely aligns with our vision”. Dr Saif emphasised that information and communications technology is the key to opening the door to stabilising and strengthening Pakistan’s economy. At present, Pakistan’s IT exports stand at $2.6 billion, and Dr Saif said that an additional 200,000 skilled human resources will be incorporated into the existing IT workforce to boost exports by $5 billion. He said that allowing IT companies to keep dollars through the ‘Dollar Retention Facility’ will increase exports by $1bn, while the establishment of the ‘Pakistan Startup Fund’ will increase the total volume of IT exports by another $1bn to help it meet the target of $10bn.
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Tuesday, November 21 2023

How digital are existing banks?
Fintech has been one of Pakistan’s brightest spots of late, with not only triple-digit growth but progressive regulatory initiatives such as Raast. Another example is the five upcoming digital retail banks, which recently got their in-principle approvals and have the entire community pretty optimistic. But before we get there, shouldn’t we ask how digital the existing banks are? If the criteria for that is based on the number of memoranda of understanding signed or the random awards won, then the industry certainly has some serious competition. Don’t take my word for it, just check your LinkedIn feed, where suited-booted uncles pose for their (un)characteristic pictures and boilerplate press releases. But in case the goal is to truly assess their performance, we need to have a more meaningful proxy. While digital readiness incorporates a number of factors, perhaps the single most useful indicator is the transaction mix since payments are effectively all that Pakistani banks do anyway. Unfortunately, our financial institutions don’t really believe in disclosing such information and face no pressure from the shareholders or regulator to do so either.
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Jazz invests over Rs20bn in CY23
Jazz has invested Rs20.6 billion mainly under its 4G-for-All initiative in the first nine months of the calendar year 2023, bringing the overall investment in Pakistan to $10.6bn. In a statement on Monday, Jazz said that despite 27 per cent year-on-year growth in overall revenues in the local currency, Jazz’s revenue declined by 3.5pc in dollar terms during the third quarter of 2023. This downturn was primarily due to the 31pc devaluation of the rupee, while the margins felt the impact of the surge in business costs, increase in interest rates and a substantial rise in the energy cost. Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim in a statement said that significant investment has been made in Jazz’s fintech, entertainment and cloud platforms.
Related news categories: business economic-indicators tech-comm