Pakistan fintech is at a fork in the road. On one side is the familiar path: adopt tools built abroad, pay fees set by others, and watch from the sidelines as global financial rules are written without us. On the other side is something harder but far more valuable, building the technology, the institutions and the companies that the world will one day rely on. That is the choice Minister of State and Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) Chairman Bilal Bin Saqib put before Pakistan’s banking industry, students and startup founders on 2 November 2026.
Pakistan Fintech Cannot Afford to Stay a Consumer
Speaking at the PBA, LUMS Dialogue on Digital Assets and the Future of Banking in Lahore, Bilal Bin Saqib said Pakistan must move from being a consumer of global financial technologies to becoming an active contributor to the infrastructure, standards and innovation that will define the future of finance.
The warning carried real weight because it comes from recent history. Recalling the country’s limited participation in the development of international correspondent banking and card payment systems, he said Pakistan continued to bear the costs of that exclusion. In plain terms: when the world designed the plumbing of modern money, Pakistan was not in the room. Pakistani businesses and consumers have been paying extra ever since, through higher transaction fees, slower cross-border payments and limited access to global capital markets.
His message was not abstract. “The question is whether we want to rent our future or own our future,” he remarked. That framing matters a great deal for anyone running a startup or working inside a Pakistani bank today.
What Building Actually Looks Like for Pakistan Fintech
Saqib was careful to explain that building does not mean reinventing everything from scratch. He emphasised that technological independence does not require Pakistan to replicate every international network. Instead, he pointed to specific areas where Pakistan can move fast and add real value.
Artificial intelligence was central to his argument. “AI is changing what a small team can build. Pakistan must bring these opportunities together.” This is a practical point for Pakistani founders: AI tools now let a small team do what used to need a large engineering department. That gap in scale no longer exists in the way it once did.
He added that the convergence of AI and blockchain could enable a new generation of highly automated and even agentic businesses, where small teams and individual entrepreneurs can build companies with capabilities that previously required much larger organisations. For a country with a young, tech-savvy population and relatively low operating costs, that is a genuine structural advantage.
Addressing students and young professionals, he encouraged them to develop globally competitive financial technologies and companies, saying Pakistan had the talent and potential to emerge as a regional centre for financial innovation.
The Role of Regulators and Banks
The call to build is not aimed only at startup founders. Banks have a big role to play too. He urged banking institutions to invest in AI capabilities, develop their existing workforce and strengthen collaboration with universities such as LUMS.
On the regulatory side, Saqib said PVARA, the State Bank of Pakistan and other regulatory bodies needed to work together within their respective mandates to promote innovation while ensuring financial stability, cybersecurity, consumer protection and accountability. This coordination is exactly what Pakistan’s fintech sector has been asking for. Earlier in 2026, all four of Pakistan’s main financial regulators appeared on one stage for the first time, a sign that the siloed approach of previous years is changing. If you want more context on how those regulators are aligning, our earlier piece on lessons Pakistani fintech startups can learn from past failures covers the ecosystem pressures that make coordination so important.
PVARA has also opened a regulatory sandbox, giving startups a legal space to test blockchain and virtual asset products under supervision. This reduces the friction that has historically kept promising fintech and digital asset ventures in legal grey areas, unable to attract institutional investment or scale responsibly.
Why the Numbers Back Up the Ambition
The case for ambition is not just rhetorical. Pakistan’s roughly 450 fintech companies have collectively raised around $391 million in venture capital to date. The broader startup ecosystem has crossed a combined enterprise value of $4 billion, growing 3.6 times since 2020. Pakistan ranks third globally in crypto adoption according to Chainalysis, behind only India and the United States.
That organic adoption is a foundation to build on. If executed consistently, PVARA could turn Pakistan from a high-adoption outlier into a recognised contributor to the global digital finance ecosystem, with startups, not just users, at the centre of that transformation. The gap that most coverage of this story misses is exactly this: Pakistan already has the user base. The missing piece is not demand, it is supply, meaning locally built products, locally trained engineers and locally grown companies that can serve that demand and then export their solutions abroad.
Pakistan fintech’s real opportunity is not to build another clone of a Western app for local users. It is to solve problems like remittance costs, agricultural credit and informal-economy payments in ways that no Silicon Valley team will ever prioritise, and then sell those solutions to other emerging markets facing the same problems. That is what owning the future looks like in practice. For more on the broader economic vision behind this push, see our coverage of financial innovation as Pakistan’s tool to cut business costs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Bilal Bin Saqib and what is PVARA?
Bilal Bin Saqib is Pakistan’s Minister of State and the Chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), the body set up under the Virtual Assets Act 2026 to license and supervise digital asset businesses in Pakistan. He has been a leading voice on blockchain and crypto policy since 2016.
What did Bilal Bin Saqib say about Pakistan fintech at the PBA, LUMS Dialogue?
He stressed that Pakistan should become a co-author of the emerging global financial rules instead of remaining a consumer of technologies developed elsewhere. He also called on banks to invest in AI, work with universities and cooperate closely with the State Bank of Pakistan to build a stable but innovation-friendly regulatory environment.
How can Pakistani startups get involved in the fintech regulatory sandbox?
For founders building in blockchain, fintech and digital assets, PVARA’s regulatory sandbox is one of the most meaningful regulatory openings Pakistan has seen. PVARA evaluates whether an idea is viable and within regulatory scope before allowing startups to test products under supervision. Applications can be submitted directly through PVARA’s official channels.
Why does it matter if Pakistan builds fintech rather than just using it?
When countries only consume financial technology built elsewhere, they pay fees set by others, depend on systems they do not control and have no seat at the table when global rules change. Building locally means keeping more revenue at home, training engineers who stay in Pakistan and creating companies that can eventually compete globally. That is what Saqib means when he draws the distinction between renting the future and owning it.
