Fintech and Financial Inclusion in Pakistan: An Exploratory Study

Financial inclusion is an important element and motive of sustainable and inclusive growth which could unleash the wide and unseen potential of formal savings, investment propensities, proper household consumption and investment inclination of the poorer strata of society. Empirical shreds of evidence show that Pakistan is considered among highly financially exclusive countries. Fintech has big potential to promote financial inclusion in terms of providing immediate, and secured digital payments, financing and also investments through crowdfunding and P2P lending to unserved or less served businesses, start-ups and also to unbanked segment and also can include more people in the ambit of insurance and segment through Insuretech. Fintech has also capacity to boost Islamic financial inclusion but shariah compatibility in applications is necessary. Fintech is deploying and using latest technologies including Big data analytics, Clouds, IoTs, Blockchain and Artificial intelligence to provide highly secured, instant, easy to access, easy to use, low cost and finally more customer-centric financial services and products. This study provides an overview of financial inclusion and also digital finance status in Pakistan and comparative analysis of information and communication technologies ICTs environment and Pakistan’s performance in ICTs. This study also elucidates the potential of Fintech applications and proposes a pragmatic scheme to develop a Fintech ecosystem to achieve the goal of financial inclusion in Pakistan.