Pakistani startup Befiler secures grant to promote tax compliance

• The platform aims to promote tax compliance in Pakistan, specifically encouraging women’s participation in financial matters.
• Befiler secures a grant for a digital experiment from Karandaaz Pakistan.
• In Pakistan, only 7% of women are financially included in digital financial services.

KARACHI: Pakistani startup Befiler has secured a grant for a digital experiment from Karandaaz Pakistan — a not-for-profit company promoting access to finance for SMEs & financial inclusion for individuals — through a competitive application process. 

The grant has been awarded in order to promote tax compliance in Pakistan through digitisation of the tax filing process, specifically encouraging women’s participation in financial and tax matters.

According to a statement issued by the startup, the grant will be specifically utilised to promote tax filing among working women so that they could digitally file their tax returns and handle other business thereby.

“This will decrease women’s reliance on male family members for in-person meetings with consultants for legal and tax matters,” the statement read.

In Pakistan, only 7% of women are financially included in digital financial services compared to 20% of men and embracing the new idea remains a challenge.

The startup’s user stats reveal that although female users are only 5% of total users, their conversion rate from sign up on Befiler to successful tax filing is more than double compared to their male counterparts.

“This demonstrates that women are more serious about financial and tax matters in comparison to males,” it said, adding that through this grant, the platform plans to test out interventions specially designed to encourage more women to become active tax filers through Befiler’s user-friendly mobile app and outcomes of communication using A/B testing.

Speaking on the occasion, Befiler Pakistan CEO Akbar Tejani said: “Befiler aims to directly target women for tax filing in hopes to have a higher involvement from them in finance and tax matters.”

“Through this exercise, we hope to give rise to opportunities for women to experience focused and directed marketing encouraging them to engage in the tax filing process,” he said, sharing the vision of his startup.

The digital experiment of Befiler will start by creating user samples and as part of the first phase of the experiment, Befiler will roll out a new app interface to specifically engage women through in-app content and communication.

In the second phase, efficiency of incentive versus fear-based communication will be tested.

Through this experiment, Befiler looks forward to setting a new way ahead for women to be addressed as a target group for tax and financial products.