OneLoad raised $11 million in 2022. Its revenue is now 2.3 percent higher
The Lahore platform that lets corner shops sell airtime has about 50,000 retailers and a State Bank licence for a wallet. Filings by its minority shareholder show thin revenue per transaction, losses of about Rs1.88 billion in four years and a parent that keeps lending.
OneLoad, the Lahore platform through which neighbourhood shops sell mobile airtime, pay bills for customers and take digital payments, booked revenue of Rs339.6 million in 2025. That is 2.3 percent above the Rs331.8 million of 2022, the year the company announced an $11 million funding round. Over the same four years its holding company reports losses that add up to about Rs1.88 billion.
None of these figures comes from OneLoad, whose accounts are not public. They are read here from the annual reports of Systems Limited, the listed software group that owns a minority stake through a Dutch holding company, E Processing Systems B.V. The holding company's only operating subsidiary is the Pakistani business that runs OneLoad.
How a shop sells airtime through an app
OneLoad says it began as a consumer wallet and moved to retailers to avoid competing with better funded rivals. The retail product replaced scratch cards. A shop selling prepaid credit used to hold physical stock, carry the risk of theft and pay several mobile operators in advance. With OneLoad the shopkeeper keeps one balance with the company and sells any operator's credit, a utility bill payment or a transfer out of it.
Each sale draws that balance down and earns the shopkeeper a commission, whose rate the company has not published. The balance is the useful part for OneLoad. Retailers who leave money on the platform give it a store of value to build on, and a base to lend against: working capital loans to retailers run through partner lenders' licences, and in 2022 the group's operating company was acquiring a non bank lending licence of its own.
What the 2022 round promised
On 2 August 2022 the company announced $11 million led by Sarmayacar and Shorooq Partners, with the Gates Foundation's strategic investment fund taking part and the International Finance Corporation and Systems Limited as earlier backers. Its chief executive then, Muhammad Yar Hiraj, put the total raised at about $18 million. He said the company had processed about $100 million of transactions the year before, handled up to 400,000 a day, wanted to reach 1 million a day, and had broken even in 2020.
“The business model has been proven.”
The only later volume figure is in a Systems Limited shareholder notice issued with its 2023 annual report. It puts OneLoad at about 7 million transactions a month and about 50,000 retailers. The 2022 goal of 1 million a day is about 30 million a month, and no published figure since shows progress toward it.
Four years of accounts
Systems Limited reports the summarised accounts of the Dutch holding company each year. Revenue was Rs331.8 million in 2022, Rs276.8 million in 2023, Rs315.6 million in 2024 and Rs339.6 million in 2025. The total loss for the period was Rs184.0 million, Rs902.4 million, Rs376.4 million and Rs414.9 million. Gross margin, which is revenue less cost of sales, was 40.6 percent, 45.1 percent, 50.6 percent and then 36.8 percent.
Two simple sums put the scale in view. If the 7 million monthly transactions in the shareholder notice held through 2023, that year's revenue of Rs276.8 million works out at about Rs3.30 a transaction, or Rs5,500 a year for each of 50,000 retailers, roughly Rs460 a month. Turning Rs3.30 into a percentage needs the average amount loaded, which OneLoad has not published: on a Rs100 load it would be 3.3 percent, on Rs300 it would be 1.1 percent. At about Rs280 to the dollar, the rate implied by Systems' own loan conversion described below, 2025 revenue is roughly $1.2 million, against roughly $7 million of losses in four years.
The pattern within the losses is informative. Finance costs fell from Rs502.3 million in 2023 to Rs61.8 million in 2024, a drop of Rs440.5 million, which explains about 84 percent of the Rs526.0 million by which the loss narrowed. In 2025 they were Rs0.3 million. The loss widened again that year: cost of revenue rose 37.5 percent while revenue rose 7.6 percent, which pushed gross margin down 13.8 points. The accounts do not break cost of revenue down. Everything below gross profit, including administration, distribution, financing and tax, came to about Rs540 million, more than four times the gross profit of Rs125.0 million.
A licence, a wallet and the parent's cheque
The State Bank gave the OneLoad operator in principle approval to become an electronic money institution in January 2020, and cleared its OneZapp wallet app for a pilot in January 2023. In November 2024 the company announced a commercial licence, with wallet accounts for individuals, agents and merchants and plans for an agent network, cards and microinsurance. That announcement named Syed Muhammad Ammar Yasin as chief executive of the operating company.
The cost of getting there has fallen heavily on Systems Limited. In 2020 it held 59.13 percent of the operating company, with the IFC due to take about 20 percent. Since the Dutch holding company was set up in October 2021, Systems has held 34.3 percent of it. In 2023 it took an impairment of Rs294.9 million on the stake, which is now carried at nil.
At the end of 2025 Systems was still owed Rs251.0 million of principal and Rs65.5 million of accrued interest on its loan to OneLoad, which is unsecured and pays one month KIBOR. The Rs52.3 million provision it held against the loan in 2024 was reversed in 2025. A notice for its annual meeting on 11 May 2026 asked shareholders to convert Rs322.8 million into 108,361 preference shares of the Dutch holding company at $10.64 each, on the basis of a last pre money valuation of $7.5 million. That is about $1.15 million of equity. The notice does not date the valuation, and says the conversion would simplify the structure and avoid tax inefficiencies.
The holding company's balance sheet changed sharply in 2025. Its equity moved from a deficit of Rs390.0 million to a surplus of Rs539.0 million, while non current liabilities dropped from Rs998.2 million to Rs12.3 million. The reconciliation in Systems' report shows why: Rs974.9 million from the conversion of SAFE notes, a form of convertible investment, and Rs368.9 million as a deposit for the issue of shares. Together that is Rs1.34 billion, more than offsetting the loss of Rs414.9 million. The report does not name the holders of the notes or the depositor.
What is unproven
Three things are open. First, whether a wallet licence adds revenue faster than it adds cost: 2025 is the first full year after the commercial licence, and margin fell. Second, whether the retailer base is active and growing, since 50,000 is a count of shops and the filings give no activity or churn. Third, who funds the next stage, since the people who have paid so far include a listed company that wrote part of its stake down.
Retailers gain from a single balance and a commission without carrying stock. Systems Limited, which has lent to the business and written down its stake, carries the downside if volume stays near 7 million a month. Systems' annual report for 2026, which on past timing appears in April 2027, will show whether revenue clears Rs340 million and whether the preference share conversion went ahead.
