The Better Than Cash Alliance is working in partnership with the Government of Pakistan to identify opportunities to promote inclusive growth, boost productivity, and improve the livelihoods of small and midsized, informal and formal business owners and specifically, women entrepreneurs, through the adoption of digital payments and commerce in the merchant value chain in Pakistan.

This project will endeavour to catalyse and scale ongoing merchant digitization and financial inclusion initiatives in the Pakistan whilst supporting the alignment of these initiatives with the UN Responsible Digital Payment Principles. In line, with the Alliance’s call to reach financial equality of women, the purpose of this request for applications (RFA) is to support the partnership between the Government of Pakistan and the Better Than Cash Alliance, to understand how digitizing women-led, small and medium sized business merchant payments can enable increased efficiency and improved economic outcomes, through a digital payments readiness & market needs assessment.

This analysis and assessment will document and explore:

• The current payments ecosystem landscape for micro, small and medium merchants, with a focus on women entrepreneurs/business-owners, including the use cases and the associated costs of receiving and making digital payments (see ITU: Enabling Merchant Payments Acceptance in the Digital Financial Ecosystems, IFC: Merchant Payments & Digital Financial Services)

• The near-future payments landscape for micro, small and medium merchants, in light of new technology and policy developments in Pakistan.

• The infrastructural and economic challenges that have thus far prevented wider economic participation and financial inclusion of women in Pakistan relative to similar regional markets (see: GPFI Advancing Women’s Digital Financial Inclusion)

• The state of financial literacy of women entrepreneurs

• The quality, efficacy & design of incentives for women merchants and other marginalized value chain actors for the adoption of digital payments (see FIGI Electronic Payments Acceptance Incentives)

• The role of the public and private sector stakeholders, their motivations, aspirations and hygiene requirements to contribute towards successful women merchant digitization efforts.
• The regulatory landscape and policy measures taken by federal and provincial regulatory stakeholders including but not limited to the FBR, SBP, SRB, PRA, KPRA & TDAP to drive the economic and financial inclusion of women.

• The efforts of the private sector, with a particular focus on the emerging FinTech companies, in their potential role as a catalyst for driving the economic inclusion of women.

• The role of women in the delivery of financial services as a potential accelerant to financial inclusion of women, women merchants and small and medium sized businesses.

• The current and forward business case for investments in, and the prioritization, of financial inclusion of women entrepreneurs.

• The approximated incremental GDP growth opportunity that can be unlocked through the whole sale adoption of digital payments and platforms by women-led, small and medium sized businesses.

UNCDF will contribute a grant of up to USD 60,000 and will award one applicant pending on the investment readiness level and outreach potential of the solution proposed. The selected applicant who will be technically responsive to this Request for Application will sign a Performance-Based Agreement (PBA).

For requests and queries, send an email to raza.matin@uncdf.org not later than November 30th, 2021 at 23:59 EST

All applications must be submitted online by December 7th, 2021 EST 11:59 PM, the New York time zone) on UNCDF online platform:

https://apply.uncdf.org/prog/btca_rfa_pakistanresponsible_and_inclusive_merchant_digitization_action_research_in_pakistan/