Going the digital road

Change is around possibly in the form of a new app that will enable business deals with the online digital signing

There is no escape — Pakistan, poor, undeveloped and somewhat ramshackle is going digital. With the increasing ubiquity of smart phones — which is creating a kind of cyber-literacy as a by-product — the economy is becoming increasingly digitised. Digital payments and online shopping are almost commonplace. Online retail is experiencing a boom, with the cash-on-delivery option allowing those that do not have bank accounts or credit and debit cards to shop till they drop. Much business however is still transacted manually, using paper systems that are slow, corruptible and generally inefficient.

Change is around the corner possibly in the form of a new app that will enable business deals to be closed with the online digital signing of the relevant documents, reducing to a matter of minutes the time it takes to seal a deal. This opens any number of windows of opportunity — car sales and leases, the power of attorney, employment contracts and tenancy agreements. Digital signatures also have the advantage of being very difficult to alter in retrospect, there being a digital trail and ‘fingerprint’ that is far harder to manipulate than a paper transaction. Verification of signatures can be made via an online connection to the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA).

A decade ago few would have imagined that this was anything other than science fiction — but the real world is catching up fast with fictional projections as digital platforms adapt ever more quickly to a range of environments — and skills and competencies. People who are functionally illiterate are going digital, increasing numbers of women and older people likewise, and digital emancipation rolls forward as fast as app developers can write code. Retail banking is on the increase as is the digital transfer of relatively small sums of money all feeding the digital economy. Pakistan is many years away from the kind of cashless society that is fast emerging in developed nations where ATMs are increasingly interactive — this year being the 50^th anniversary of the first digital ATM becoming operational — but he spread of the internet and the tumbling cost of simple smart phones are changing the lives of all of us, rich and poor alike.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2017.

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