Pilot to Scale
Karandaaz Digital’s ‘Pilot to Scale Grants Programme’ aims to build models and solutions for the financial inclusion of the unbanked and underbanked population. In addition to empowering those who do not have an account, research suggests that the underbanked population must be targeted with pilots that introduce financial deepening to such segments.
The support from Karandaaz will enable private DFS players to test pilots and scale the successful ones and disseminate the learnings for wider use. The programme focuses on the following four categories:
Digital Payments
Payments use-cases have widely remained non-digital in Pakistan primarily due to absence of digitization of the processes and systems. This segment needs to be supported to digitize enough payment use-cases to create traction for the consumers to adopt a digital channel for frequent use. Under this category, the DFS unit identifies new use-cases of payments and make them interoperable for the public use, energizes financial institutions in piloting payments use cases with the objective of scaling, identifies the right consumer adoption strategy by testing different digital consumer channels and interfaces for the digital payments, and supports prospective payment initiatives in getting connected to the latest infrastructure or technology enhancements.
- JS Bank
- KuickPay
- Vizpro
Digitization in Value Chains
An examination of the agriculture value chain demonstrates that major value chain players are hesitant to adopt digital methods of payments due to complex banking procedures. Also, lack of awareness among farmers has led to slow adoption of technology, which has resulted in low productivity and income. The DFS unit aims to demonstrate through a pilot that digitalization of a traditional agriculture value chain will reduce inefficiencies that exist in the value chain, enhance visibility across the value chain, and result in widespread adoption of digital channels, which will enable digital payments and lead to financial inclusion, improve farmer outreach to data-driven scientific-based agriculture practices, and ensure smooth information flow between different value chain players.
- Growtech
Product White Spaces
This segment focuses on the creation of unique use-cases on digital channels acting as a platform for onboarding onto digital financial services. The objective will be to help build disruptive products, experiments, hypotheses and concepts that push boundaries in the financial services space. Partners will be required to understand the nuances of how consumers in different segments utilize financial services and develop value propositions that cater to these varying demands. These interventions will be company-stage and industry agnostic with everyone from pre-seed stage companies to established conglomerates, as well as, startups, Banks, NBFCs and more, welcome to put forward propositions that align with the developmental agenda.
Emerging Payment Technologies
Under its new initiative, Emerging Payment Technologies, Karandaaz Pakistan is pleased to announce a Call for Applications for “Artificial Intelligence in Digital Payments.” The intervention seeks AI enabled solutions that improve front-end user experience and back-end operations, with potential to enhance security, efficiency, credit access, and customer experience. We aim to support entities applying AI at scale, in pilot stage, or through proof-of-concept experiments that demonstrate significant impact across Pakistan’s payments landscape.
Apply Now
Please do mention the respective domain under which you wish to apply for grant in the subject line of your email along with a deck of slides or a PDF containing an initial proposal as an attachment and send to programofficedfs@karandaaz.com.pk
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