KARACHI: The National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has entered into an agreement with Mastercard, a technology company in the global payments industry, to optimise national identity cards with electronic payments functionality, a statement said on Wednesday.

“The move will allow Pakistani citizens to carry out financial transactions and receive government disbursements by utilising the unique 13-digit identification number on their identity card,” said a statement issued by the company.

“Citizens will also be able to use their computerised national identity card (CNICs) to send and receive domestic and international remittances, eliminating the requirement to physically visit a bank branch or currency exchange house to meet their money transfer needs,” it added.

Under the terms of the agreement, Mastercard said it would also use its next-generation payment processing technologies to process all online payments made by Pakistani citizens for the issuance of CNICs, passports or any other document provisioned by Nadra.

The fresh agreement between two sides was reached at the World Economic Forum annual meeting currently taking place in Davos, Switzerland.

“Our collaboration with Nadra is a testament to our commitment towards building a reliable and secure ecosystem for online payments in Pakistan,” said the statement quoting Mastercard’s country manager Pakistan and Afghanistan Aurangzaib Khan.

“The new service will make international remittances more convenient both for the sender and beneficiary. This is significant since Pakistan is one of the top receivers of remittances from abroad. Combining the national identity card with payment features will transform it into a powerful, multi-purpose channel for citizens to carry out financial transactions, and will facilitate faster and more efficient delivery of vital government services.”

Apart from introducing technological support for the Pakistani nationals, an official said the move was actually aimed at financial inclusion of hundreds of thousands of individuals, who mostly relied on conventional and irregular channels for money transfers and transactions.

“The recent partnership between both parties [Nadra and Mastercard] is just a beginning of much larger plan that is actually aimed at documentation of each and every individual’s economy,” he said.

“The objective is to utilise the Nadra database to streamline money transaction and bring transparency in the economic system. It would only be possible with the financial inclusion of the people,” he added.

Published in Dawn, January 19th, 2017