Egyptian Fintech Powerhouse Paymob Announces Expansion into Pakistan

Considered Egypt’s largest payment facilitator, Paymob has spread its wings and has touched down in Pakistan, a market that holds untold opportunities for the fintech player. 

Since its founding in 2015 by Alain El Hajj, Islam Shawky and Mostafa El Menessy, Paymob has established itself as a leader in online and offline payment solutions for merchants in Egypt. In 2020 their revenue skyrocketed by five times, and their user base grew outside of Egypt to include merchants and underserved SMEs from Kenya, Palestine and, of course, Pakistan. 

Pakistan is ripe for the kind of fintech solutions that Paymob can offer. With a population of 200 million and over 4 million SMEs using a combined 80,000 POS systems, who will all stand to benefit from Paymob’s capacity to bridge the digital financial gap.

The fintech sector in Pakistan is itself on the rise, with February, 2022 witnessing the biggest ever seed round raised by a Karachi-based Pakistani startup, NayaPay Pvt., which raised an impressive $13 million. While 2021 saw the transport & logistics sector rank highest in terms of capital invested, fintech startups experienced a fruitful year, with 16 more deals and a remarkable 2,500% growth in funding, marking the sector as Pakistan’s third largest. 

On the part of Egyptian fintech startups, the last seven years has seen more and more startups operating in the space. In 2014, there were two, while last year, there were 112. This can be attributed to the increasing diversification of financial solutions, though payments & remittance remains the most dominant sub-sector, accounting for 30% of all fintech startups. It was between 2020 and 2021 that the most dramatic growth happened, however, particularly in terms of funding rising from $37 million in 2020 to $159 million in 2021.

Of course, the key to the Pakistan move ultimately lies in the many similarities that it shares with Egypt. An estimated 70% of Pakistan’s population are unbanked, mirroring Egypt’s figure of 67%.

Paymob has targeted 100,000 Pakistani merchants over the next two years, while there will be expansion on another front, as it prepares to expand into KSA later this year - the first steps of its ambitious global expansion plans.