JS Zindigi, Chikoo to launch financial services

KARACHI: Zindigi, powered by JS Bank that is a leading Pakistani commercial bank, has partnered with Chikoo, country’s premier small business management platform, to launch first integrated financial services solution, a statement said on Monday.

Through the alliance, entrepreneurs have access to a full suite of banking services including immediate access to funds received digitally, bill payments, employee payroll, supplier payments and access to small business financing.

Small business owners and their teams will also receive a free debit card for electronic transactions and cash withdrawals. Central to the mission of empowering small businesses, Chikoo has evolved to enable small business owners to easily manage every aspect of their business, from sales, ecommerce, accounting, logistics, marketing, payments and human resources - allowing them to build better, growing & more profitable businesses.

The Chikoo platform puts business data ownership, privacy and security at the heart of its merchant experience. As Pakistan’s only PCI-DSS compliant ecommerce platform, Chikoo reaffirms its commitment to delivering enterprise-grade business technology solutions to the smallest of businesses without compromise.

Noman Azhar, chief officer Zindigi said, “Zindigi is all about listening to our customers and providing them not only with the requisite services but also the experience that makes their lives easier. Our partnership with Chikoo to provide wallet services for SMEs and an exclusive debit card is another step towards building the resilience of small business in Pakistan, in an increasingly challenging economic environment.”

Salaal Hasan, head of Ecosystem Development, JS Bank stated, “Small businesses are the backbone of the Pakistani economy. In-line with the vision of the State Bank of Pakistan, we are working to drive the growth of small businesses and subsequently support the growth of the national economy.”

“We foresee that our partnership with Chikoo will aim to help more than 5 million small businesses in Pakistan, driving equitable growth and democratizing access to e-commerce and digital financial services,” he added.

Raza Matin, co-founder of Chikoo said, “In Chikoo, we have built a merchant platform that provides the tools that have been traditionally only available to large enterprises, to the smallest of businesses.” “Over the last year, tens of thousands of merchants have signed up and have been using Chikoo to build better businesses, however, the one set of challenges that kept coming up in our conversations with our customers, particularly women, was the arduous process of opening up bank accounts, setting up digital payments and access to finance,” he added.

Not satisfied with the current merchant experience, we set about to re-imagine how financial services should be delivered to entrepreneurs, in partnership with our partners at JS Bank Zindigi, Matin said.

Faizan Siddiqi, co-founder of Chikoo, said, “Successfully extending financial services to the lowest aggregated economic unit (small businesses), requires a solution-oriented mindset beyond opening more branches and issuing new debit cards.”

A move is required towards solving real business challenges, which for small business owners can be as simple as knowing the value of your inventory on hand, or ensuring there are sufficient funds available for payroll at the end of the month. We believe by marrying technology, intuitive design and financial services, we can help millions of small business owners in the region unlock growth, and better economic outcomes for themselves,” he added.

Zindigi serves the next generation of customers, with a design philosophy to make banking simple. Loaded with the most innovative product suite in the market including investment in stocks, mutual funds, request money and others within a fully customisable app interface.