Here’s How National Bank of Pakistan and Huawei Pay Aim to Transform Pakistan’s Digital Payment Ecosystem

By Zohaib Ali Khan & Faizan Razi

The past decade has seen a large scale shift from physical to digital payments, while we also witnessed heightened customer demand and competition. The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has been aggressively working towards developing a digital product suite by leveraging disruptive technology in the banking industry and providing easy to use platforms to its customers to fulfill their financial needs.

NBP is one of the largest commercial banks of Pakistan, operating through more than 1500 local and international branches and has achieved a strategic milestone by becoming the first bank in Pakistan to launch ‘Huawei Pay’ for its mobile banking users with Huawei or Honor smartphones. Pakistan has become the third country in the world accepting Huawei Pay transactions after China & Russia, putting Pakistan at the forefront of the digital banking transformation.

The milestone was achieved in collaboration with UnionPay International (UPI), NBP’s strategic partner and Paysys Labs, NBP’s technology partner. This initiative is important for NBP as it paves the way for building an echo system for digital payments as Huawei Pay enables NBP mobile banking users that own Huawei or Honor smartphones to enjoy QR & NFC Payments at UPI N-Tag & QR Merchants.

Through Huawei Pay, NBP UPI Virtual Card Holders will benefit from quicker and convenient digital payments, with fully secure technology. NBP UPI Virtual Card Holders can simply begin utilizing the service by adding their card details to the Huawei Pay Wallet App. The app also has an in-built feature of viewing purchase history for customers to keep a track record.

Why is This a Paradigm Shift in Banking for Pakistan?

Over the years, merchant acquiring has been a major issue in Pakistan as there are only 57,000 POS devices placed at only 29,000 unique merchant locations in the country. Two key reasons behind this are the high cost of acquiring and inefficient settlements.

With the launch of Huawei Pay, a milestone has been reached whereby POS acquiring is no longer a limiting factor. With N-Tag & QR payments, merchants across the country with little or no acquiring cost can be onboarded with no connectivity link up required.

The easier to apply and plug & play methodology and with the rising number of tech-savvy consumers, particularly millennials and generation z, it will be comparatively easier to build an ecosystem for digital payments at zero startup cost.

What’s Next?

NBP ended 2019 with QR campaigns in partnership with UPI at prestigious retail brands. Based on the promising results of the pilot, NBP will continue to increase the momentum and multiple campaigns are planned with UPI to accelerate usage. It will help customers, especially in urban centers to become aware of the new way of payments and going forward, efforts will be made to onboard the public sector for the convenience of customers.

How to Use Huawei Pay

Follow the steps below to add NBP UPI Virtual Card on Huawei Pay Wallet App today:

  • Begin by downloading the app from Huawei App Gallery or Google Play Store from your Huawei phone.
  • Create a user login on the app with valid credentials.
  • Select ‘Add a Bank Card’ option and enter NBP UPI Virtual Card Number, continue by tapping on the ‘agree’ button for terms and conditions.
  • To complete the process, enter the registered mobile number to receive a ‘One Time Password’ (OTP) through SMS. Enter the received OTP on your Huawei Pay Wallet App to link a Bankcard.

Now customers may continue to way into making quick and convenient payments.

To learn more about NBP UPI Virtual Card and Huawei Pay please visit the link below:

https://www.nbp.com.pk/digital/faq.aspx

About The Authors

Zohaib has diversified experience starting from Mobile Money Services, home remittance business, and digital payments. Currently, he is part of the Digital Banking & Transformation team in NBP.

Faizan has vast experience in digital payments & services, he is currently working as Unit Head – Digital Products & Channels in NBP.


  • National Bank of Pakistan can never beat Jazz Cash and Easypaisa… and I hope SADAPAY launches soon too. Te reason is bcuz NBP is simply the worst kind of services providers in banking.. Dont respond to calls or emails and etc


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