Google Play Store services to be inaccessible in Pakistan from Dec 1 – 2022

Mobile clients will not have the option to get Google Play Store services beginning on December 1, 2022, after the State Bank of Pakistan blocked the installment of $34 million to worldwide service providers.

The installment of $34 million yearly to abroad specialist organizations like Google, Amazon, and Meta through mobile firms slowed down after the national bank quit utilizing the quick transporter charging (DCB) system.

Clients in Pakistan will be compelled to download Google and other unfamiliar applications to make purchases utilizing Visas or charge cards. Nonetheless, on the grounds that the Mastercard choice is simply accessible to a specific number of customers, most the versatile clients probably won’t have the option to download programs from the Google Play Store.

On Friday, the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), the Service of Data Innovation and Telecom, and four cell versatile administrators (CMOs) consistently composed a joint letter to the SBP requesting that it rethink its choice to renounce the DCB system for the installment of the dollar charge considering the country’s ongoing liquidity emergency.

The News got affirmation from legitimate government sources that Google administrations like application downloads will not be accessible. They informed the proper specialists that a $34 million installment was past due and that, in the event that it was not paid, their administrations for Google Application Store downloads would fail to be advertised.

The four mobile operators sent a joint letter to the government, stating that the telecom industry is one of the biggest contributors to foreign direct investment along with other significant contributions in the form of tax, duties, and other levies.

The hosting on cloud platforms, licensing needed for services/platforms, security measures, and in many cases, technical expertise to upskill the local workforce to reach international standards are all areas where Pakistan’s digital economy heavily depends on foreign service providers.

Due to non-payment, all of the big players, including Google, Amazon, and Meta, are suffering and are most likely to stop providing their services. The result will be that telecom and internet users won’t be able to satisfy their needs from digital platforms like digital banking, e-commerce, e-education, and e-health that use cloud infrastructure and require licenses for both applications and web-based platforms that are severely impacted.

The role of the telecom sector in expanding the agenda of Digital Pakistan cannot be ignored. Pakistan’s digital transformation is intended to benefit all social and economic sectors and thus needs engagement and facilitation from all stakeholders.

Given the lack of distribution support and interest from the market players like Google, Amazon, and Apple representing Facebook, selling digital platforms will become very difficult. As a result, companies, services, and goods beyond the digital sphere will be impacted. Digital marketing is currently the most effective channel for all businesses, products, and services.

“Any potential outage of such digital services due to non-payments would create a lot of negativity in the world about Pakistan in this age of social media and should be avoided at any cost,” stated the letter.

The letter concluded: “It is pertinent to mention here that we all understand the prevailing challenge of worsening economic conditions of the country and thus are open to working in an amicable way with the Regulator (SBP); as we are already working with them in case of the telecom sector imports related transactions to navigate through these testing times.”