Pakistan’s Bank Alfalah launches transformative Alfa app, a one-stop solution for personal finance needs

One of Pakistan’s biggest banks — Bank Alfalah (BAFL) — has taken banking innovation a step further by launching its game-changing Alfa app, which seamlessly merges personal finance and digital lifestyle to promote financial inclusion in the truest sense.

The new user interface design, which incorporates banking into people’s lifestyles, offers a wide range of solutions for personal finance needs from savings and investments to personal loans.

Launched at Bank Alfalah’s Digital Lifestyle Branch on October 29, the Alfa app was inaugurated by State Bank of Pakistan’s Executive Director Syed Sohail Jawaad and former SBP governor Syed Salim Raza. The bank’s senior leadership, including its chief digital officer, and important thought leaders on digital innovation were also present at the launch event.

The app offers very simple onboarding through the user’s national computerized identity card (CNIC). The app can also be used to log in to the web portal, eliminating the need to remember multiple credentials.

Moreover, it offers users the option to customize from a range of widgets, easily block or unblock their debit or credit cards across multiple channels, and update limits. One of the best parts about the app is that instead of showing the account numbers of people the user completed transactions with, the app shows names instead.

The Alfa app offers innovative features for saving and investing — it serves a range of needs from setting financial goals to investing in different avenues, both conventional and Islamic. Through the app, users can instantly invest in term deposit receipts, mutual funds, securities, Pakistan Investment Bonds, and treasury bills.

In addition, they can open accounts in different currencies, including PKR, USD, GBP, EUR, and AED, and seamlessly convert them.

Moreover, the Alfa app also makes borrowing easier than ever before with instant loans of up to PKR 750,000, rapid credit card applications, agricultural financing, auto financing, and offers to purchase products on the buy-now-pay-later mechanism via AlfaMall.

The app also simplifies utility bills, school fees, and other payments by giving users the ability to schedule them. It uses secure tokenization to make seamless, contactless payments directly without carrying a physical card. It also allows users to split payments between their accounts, credit card, and orbit points.

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Talking to Nukta on the occasion, Bank Alfalah President & CEO Atif Bajwa said the app's main objective was to make customers' lives more easy and convenient. Detailing the features of the website, he said that all of them combined make the app's experience a "pleasure".

In response to a question about the economy, Bajwa said there was a "world of difference" between where Pakistan was now compared to the country's situation a year ago.

"We have moved from doom and gloom towards hope ... the economy thrives in stability. We're very happy that those circumstances are beginning to appear."

The President & CEO noted that as interest rates come down, banks' profitability would be affected, adding however, that as long as the economy was thriving, banks would find a way to flourish.

"The trick is to become more relevant to the economy by bringing more people [into the financial system]," he added.

Instant-processing Cheque Deposit Kiosk

Along with the Alfa App, BAFL also launched the country’s first digital instant-processing Cheque Deposit Kiosk, which uses advanced technologies such as Optical Character Recognition (OCR), biometrics, cryptography, and machine learning to accept, read, and process checks digitally on a 24/7 basis for Bank Alfalah account holders.

For the first time, customers will have a real-time check clearing solution. The bank expects the kiosk to be adopted widely by the trader community, similar to how they embraced its Cash Deposit Machines, which generate over PKR 500 billion in annual volumes.