Farhan Hassan, Chief Digital Officer at easypaisa digital bank, said Pakistan’s digital banking transformation has not been the result of a single turning point but rather a series of regulatory, technological, and market-led interventions that have collectively reshaped the country’s financial landscape. He was speaking at a panel discussion titled “How Digital Banks Can Thrive in the New Era?” held at Money20/20 Asia in Bangkok, where he appeared alongside digital banking executives and senior industry leaders. Farhan cited a notable rise in Pakistan’s financial inclusion rate, which climbed from 47 percent in 2018 to 67 percent in 2025, a shift he attributed to digital innovation and policy reforms that widened access to financial services across the country.
Offering a closer look at easypaisa digital bank’s trajectory as Pakistan’s first digital retail bank to commence commercial operations, Farhan pointed to data showing that 92 percent of retail payments in the second quarter of the fiscal year 2025 to 2026, amounting to 3.1 billion transactions, were processed through digital channels including mobile banking applications, internet banking, automated teller machines, point-of-sale terminals, and e-commerce gateways. He noted that while the COVID-19 pandemic served as a major catalyst in accelerating the adoption of digital financial services, more recent initiatives led by the Prime Minister’s office and the State Bank of Pakistan have further advanced Pakistan’s move toward a cashless economy, both at an operational level and from a policy standpoint.
The panel discussion also examined how digital banks can build and sustain customer trust over time, a challenge that Farhan addressed by pointing to the delicate balance between user experience and security. He observed that excessive friction pushes users away while inadequate safeguards expose them to risk, and argued that sustainable trust is best achieved through seamless user experiences backed by strong but largely invisible security mechanisms. In the absence of physical branch infrastructure, reliability effectively becomes the digital equivalent of a brick-and-mortar presence, with customers expecting payments, transfers, and support to be consistently accessible. Farhan also highlighted that digital banks are no longer competing solely with traditional financial institutions but increasingly with Big Tech firms and embedded finance players, prompting easypaisa digital bank to shift from a closed model to an open platform approach that enables partnerships with e-commerce companies, telecom operators, and other stakeholders.
On the role of artificial intelligence, Farhan said that AI-driven credit scoring and decisioning are already helping institutions scale lending responsibly while also improving fraud detection and risk monitoring capabilities. He acknowledged that fully AI-driven financial advisory services continue to evolve, and that human oversight remains important at this stage to ensure accuracy, trust, and contextual judgment. He also pointed to structural challenges including socio-economic disparities, limited digital literacy, and language fragmentation as factors currently slowing broader artificial intelligence adoption in Pakistan, though he expressed confidence that continued investment in digital infrastructure, education, and localized innovation would reduce these barriers considerably in the near term. Easypaisa digital bank, which now counts over 59 million registered users, has stated its continued alignment with the State Bank of Pakistan’s vision for inclusive economic growth and its commitment to expanding financial products and services for existing, unbanked, and underbanked users across the country.
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