Government of Pakistan has finally woken up to the realities of 21st century. Who would believe that in this day and age, there is no way Pakistanis could pay for goods online Paypal is standard way for payments in the e-commerce, but Pakistanis don’t have that ‘luxury’. Ministry of IT has also cautiously taken this initiative after a decision by the global Financial Action Task Force to remove Pakistan from its list of high-risk and non-cooperative jurisdictions linked to money laundering. Well at last they have started thinking about it.
Pakistani economy is cash based. There is limited online merchandising. People who buy online have to pay cash on delivery. This never gets recorded anywhere and so government cannot tax it. Bringing paypal enabled payments would mean linking it to the banking system and hence tax collection will be easy from seller and buyer. The biggest advantage would be increase in online shopping in Pakistan and that would mean more and more producers and consumers and hence a new wave of hundreds of thousands of jobs direct and indirect due to the supply chain. This should be expedited.