Ziyad Parekh: RAAST Will Change Every Online Payment in Pakistan!! | 484 | TBT
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In this episode of Thought Behind Things, we sit down with Ziyad Parekh, Co-Founder & CEO of Safepay, one of Pakistan’s most exciting fintech startups and a Y-Combinator backed startup.
Ziyad shares how he went from Karachi to New York and why he left everything to return home and build Pakistan’s version of Stripe. We uncover how Safepay survived being taken to zero overnight, how they rebuilt with grit, and why they now process volumes comparable to giants like HBL.
We Explore:
– VISA/Mastercard charging Rs. 30 per transaction
– Getting Investment From Stripe
– Karachi's Poor infrastructure
– How RAAST might change everything
– And what the future of digital payments will look like
This episode is the ultimate deep-dive into Pakistan’s fintech landscape, the opportunities, the chaos, and the future.
#thoughtbehindthings #safepay #muzamilhasan #pakistan #startup #tbtxendeavor
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Endeavor's LinkedIn: / endeavor-pakistan
Special thanks to Kickstart for providing us with the studio space.
You can find out more about them at: https://kickstart.pk/
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Credits:
Executive Producer: Syed Muzamil Hasan Zaidi
Associate Producer: Saad Shehryar
Publisher: Talha Shaikh
Editor: Jawad Sajid
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
2:06 - Early Life, Education & Karachi’s Reality
7:08 - Growing Up Abroad & Returning to Karachi
17:41 - New York Experience
21:58 - Life in NYC vs California & Karachi vs Islamabad
30:15 - How Safepay Was Born
41:14 - Licenses, YC Story & Restarting From Zero
54:12 - Cracking Pakistan’s Fintech From the US
1:03:56 - Money Flowing Through Safepay Before HBL Exit
1:06:09 - Current Scale, Profitability & Funding
1:09:00 - Team Size & Licensing Limitations
1:11:16 - VISA/Mastercard Fees
1:16:26 - Bank Integrations & COVID Shift
1:24:22 - Funding Rounds & Investors
1:29:48 - Top Payment Gateways in Pakistan
1:33:18 - Lending, Money Movement & How They Differ
1:38:15 - RAAST & Future of Payments
1:51:51 - Crypto, Blockchain & What’s Coming
2:04:41 - How Merchants Onboard on Safepay
2:08:27 - Pakistan of 2050
2:17:48 - Closing Note
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