State Bank's Innovation Hub and Mojaloop open a payments accelerator in Karachi
The first Pakistan cohort starts with a five day workshop at the central bank's head office on 2 November and runs to February 2027.
The Mojaloop Foundation and the State Bank of Pakistan's Innovation Hub have opened a country accelerator to train the engineers and firms who would build Pakistan's next payment systems. The first cohort starts with a five day workshop at the State Bank's head office in Karachi from 2 to 6 November. Applications closed on 18 October.
Mojaloop is a nonprofit that develops free, open source software for instant payment systems. The Pakistan programme is built around that software and is aimed at the people who integrate and run such systems, not at consumers or merchants.
Who could apply
The Foundation named four groups: local system implementers, hub operators such as Raast, 1Link and PSO, Raast participants, and digital financial service providers. Implementers are the main target, meaning the technology firms that integrate and customise payment platforms. Raast is Pakistan's instant payment system, operated by the State Bank through its subsidiary Raast Payments Pakistan.
The Foundation said the programme is meant to build a skilled local community of implementers and to reduce reliance on outside technical resources.
The Foundation gave Pakistan's growing digital payments sector as the reason for the programme. Instant payment infrastructure is expanding, it said, and that opens new work for financial institutions, fintechs and technology providers, who need local expertise in interoperable payment systems.
Sixteen weeks of coursework
The programme combines self paced online coursework on a training portal, debrief sessions led by Mojaloop experts and the Karachi workshop. The workshop includes hands on exercises and technical deep dives with the Mojaloop team. After it, participants continue with online modules, assessments and community training sessions. The full programme runs for about 16 weeks, from November 2026 to February 2027.
The Foundation lists practical experience in Mojaloop implementation, operations and integration among the benefits, along with contacts across the industry and preparation to support future deployments in financial services.
The two organisations have worked together before. In May, the Innovation Hub hosted a virtual session on open source payment platforms with Mojaloop's technical and partnerships leads. It covered how open architecture compares with proprietary software, including on cost, and how emerging markets can build local capacity around open source payments.
Neither organisation has published the number of places in the cohort or named the first participants.
