LAHORE: Considering the current payments market as highly fragmented and complex, a foreign company is set to launch a global unified payment network called ‘HAZZA’ in Pakistan during the first week of next month.

The firm’s founder says that lack of universal acceptance, inefficiencies and closed proprietary technology are problems faced by many industry participants.

“In our experience, new payment solutions often do not address this and are mostly designed to solve one specific issue. HAZZA is an initiative to build a democratised, unified payment network by migrating OCTO3’s proven technology onto blockchain. The platform will be owned and guided by a not-for-profit entity, The Foundation, and governed by the HAZZA network community,” explained Mr Ajmal Samuel, Founder and Chairman of the Hong Kong based firm - OCTO3 Limited - while speaking at HAZZA’s introductory ceremony on Wednesday.

The goal is to allow the world’s merchants, global payment networks, acquirers, issuers, alternative payment method providers (APMs), payment service providers (PSPs) and other participants (device manufacturers, POS providers, the crypto community etc.) to access a low-cost, minimal-engagement, decentralised payment network.

The platform is proposed to be based on OCTO3’s existing Global Payment System, a scalable cloud-based Omni-channel proprietary technology,” Mr Samuel added.

It is a certified BASE I, BASE II capable processor, and features a fully functional ISO 8583 payment switch. It is fully compliant with over 130 transaction currencies and allows full transactional oversight, covering e-commerce, physical POS, mobile POS, MOTO, coupon and loyalty programmes currently. “The Global Payment System has robust functionalities and the highest level of security, maintaining a PCI-DSS Level 1 certification,” he said.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2017