INTRODUCTION (NIFT)

NIFT - National Institutional Facilitation Technologies (Pvt.). Ltd. was incorporated in September 1995 as joint venture between a consortium of six banks and entrepreneurs from the private sector. All commercial banks and all of their branches in major cities avail NIFT’s services. As of January 2009, 40 commercial banks and their 4700 branches in 140 major cities, 20 data centres utilize NIFT’s services.

NIFT has setup elaborate data centers geared to provide automated services for document processing particularly in the payment arena. Modern image based facilities have been established at Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Rawalpindi, Hyderabad, Multan, Faisalabad, Quetta, D.I.Khan, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Sukkur, Bahawalpur, Muzaffarabad, Jhelum, Abottabad, Sahiwal and Sargodha. The services include cheques clearing, reconciliation, ‘return’ (unpaid) cheques processing, same day clearing (express – 2 hrs. clearing service), intercity clearing and inter branch & inter bank settlement. Services are provided at individual branch level to over 4500 branches in 100 major cities and smaller cities.

NIFT has set up a grid of automated clearing which provides efficient and cost effective intercity clearing involving 20 major and over 140 satellite cities in Pakistan. NIFT has facilitated setting up of citizen data base by National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) by image archiving of 65 million census forms. NIFT has progressed the ACH facilities by providing web based facilities. The clearing results are now accessible by banks and branches through the NIFT's web portal.

In addition to providing services to the financial industry, NIFT is a trusted service provider to major utility companies for utility payment services. Both gas distribution companies of Pakistan (SSGC and SNGPL), Telecommunication company (PTCL), Cellular companies (Mobilink and Telenor) exploit NIFT's Services). NIFT also provides exclusive item processing services to large corporations which includes oil refinery, insurance companies and other businesses.

ISM - NIFT has incorporated an wholly owned subsidiary ‘Image Systems Marketing (Pvt.) Ltd.’, to offer Enterprise Content Management Services. ECMS comprises of image archiving/retrieval and document management services, bulk printing of variable and fixed data (in colour and black), insertion services and web publishing of enterpirse data. It has been a unique experience to brings six large banks and private sector on one platform to help modernize payment systems in Pakistan.

NIFTeTRUST a division of NIFT is a Certification Authority of Pakistan. This division has establishes facilities to provide PKI (public key infrastructure) based security solutions for e-business, e-commerce, e-banking and e-government as an affiliate of VERISIGN Inc USA. NIFTeTRUST also provides other Information Security related services to large coroprations and banks which include Penetration Testing, Consultancy on Information Security.