COVID-19 exclusive: Shifting of the paradigm with Najeeb Agrawalla, 1LINK

“When COVID-19 took hold, necessity dictated that all organizations move to digital. Hence, to ensure safety, all communication is now done online with new ways to collaborate and innovate”, said Najeeb Agrawalla, Chief Executive Officer at 1LINK in an exclusive Q&A session with Daily NewsPK while sharing his insights about the current scenario of the economy and post COVID-19 effects on the financial industry in Pakistan.

1. How do you imagine financial sector post COVID-19?

Banking is classified as essential services which has put banks and financial institutions under immense pressure to ensure services during the nationwide lock-down due to the health hazard. An immediate outcome of the COVID-19 situation is a much-needed rigor towards customer (both individual and corporate) adoption of digital services. Banks in particular should by default enable internet and mobile banking services for their customers while letting digital averse customers opt-out of such services.

In parallel, a shift in consumer behavior has already started where consumers are forced to stay home during lock-down and use online services for their financial needs. The reduced cash dependency is likely to get consumers comfortable with managing their money digitally and stop visiting bank branches altogether even post this pandemic. This shift in behavior is most likely to force many traditionally managed institutions to fast-track digital enablement efforts.

Moreover, as the World Health Organization and local regulatory authorities encourage contactless payments, it is expected that we will see an increase in innovative contact less payment methods instead of handing cash or cards. P2P services are also expected to grow which enable individuals to pay and reimburse each other without exchanging cash.

2. What key actions did you make to stand by your clients and society?

1LINK is categorized as part of critical services as we operate the digital payments infrastructure for the country and hence, a subset of our employees has been on duty every single day to ensure uninterrupted services to our customers and their customers. Furthermore, the top management has also attended office without fail to lead from the front and manage any unforeseen situation on immediate basis.

That said, keeping in view the current situation following steps have been taken:

• As per the directive of the Regulator, 1LINK reduced its 1IBFT pricing for banks by 84% to PKR 1 flat for any amount transferred, enabling banks to offer free funds transfer to all banking customers. Though this has major impact on our revenues, we are committed to play our part in making it easier for consumers to shift to digital payments.
• We have introduced several innovative products to accelerate digitization such as 1IBFT OTC which enables people to initiate funds transfer through any participating bank’s branch and simplifies the paper-based clearing process as per SBP PSD Circular 04, 2020.
• One more area which we are facilitating for digitization is loan payments through our 1BILL proposition which is already live at majority Banks. Through 1BILL, currently customers can pay utility bills, top ups and credit card payments conveniently through online channels.
• On the funds transfer end, we have introduced 1RTP (Request To Pay) which enables payee to request funds from payer digitally without having to exchange cash. 1RTP offers many benefits which are required for mass adoption, as it is an account-based transaction, every account holder can access this transaction for many use cases addition to P2P like retail, QR, bill, and ecommerce payments.
• We have also launched 1IBFT Insta which guarantees an instant decision on the transfer for use cases in retail space.

3. How often are you communicating with your existing clients?

As always, we offer extensive support and maintain constant communication with our clients and partners on a daily basis. We are processing over 2 million transactions per day and our customer support desk and security operation center are available 24X7 for our customers. It will not be an overstatement that 1LINK doesn’t sleep with its round the hour availability of services, customer support operations and security monitoring.

4. How are you educating your customers to use digital channels?

 1LINK has been a proponent of digital payment channels since long before the advent of COVID-19. We believe that digital payment channels are imperative due to the ease and security they provide. Since 1LINK mainly operates in B2B space, there is limited communication with the end customers, we have been actively assisting our member banks, billers and partners for digitizing use cases, for e.g., loan payments via 1BILL and the same is being communicated through our steady communication through email channels (1LINKDirect and 1BYTE), social media presence and our website.

5. How can you help financial institutions face the COVID-19 crisis?

We are encouraging banks, financial institutions and non-banking entities to utilize this time of disruption to re-define their services to digital variants. 1LINK, being Pakistan’s leading financial enabler has been providing state-of-the-art, convenient and secure digital financial solution rails to the industry. Our products such as 1IBFT and 1BILL provide the flexible orchestration of payments which can be mapped to any use case which the financial or non-financial institutions would like to build upon as part of their digitization drive.

With the heightened levels of fraud and security risks presented to the financial industry, 1LINK has taken steps to alleviate the pressure through its Threat Intelligence Platform (1TIP) that gives organizations a holistic view of the threat landscape and a proactive posture to protect their institutions from the multitude of threats they face.

Moreover, to facilitate institutions in building resilience and inculcating innovation, we have planned online information sessions on products, security/fraud risk and State bank circulars which aim to initiate interactive and collaborative learning across the industry.

Last but not the least, 1LINK is committed to collaborate, cooperate and/or co-exist with relevant players for the common goal of growing and digitizing the payments landscape of Pakistan and invites all to join hands to speed-up the progress on digital payments.