Befiler to Introduce a Digital Solution for Tax Filing with Karandaaz Support
Befiler recently won a grant for a digital experiment from Karandaaz Pakistan, a not-for-profit
funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Befiler participated in the recent round of Karandaaz’s
Digital Experiment Program, and won the grant through a competitive application process. The
grant will support Befiler’s vision of promoting tax compliance in Pakistan through digitalization
of tax filing process; specifically encouraging women’s participation in financial and tax matters.
The grant will be specifically utilized for promoting 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.
For Pakistan, embracing digital financial services remains a challenge. The gap is especially
wide as only 7% of women in Pakistan are financially included compared to 20% of men.
However, Befiler’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
male counterparts. This demonstrates that women are more serious about financial and tax
matters in comparison to males. Through this grant, Befiler 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. The lessons learned
through the experiment will be widely disseminated for diffusion and uptake to push the entire
ecosystem forward.
Akbar Tejani, CEO Befiler Pakistan expressed,
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 to women to experience focused and directed
marketing encouraging them to engage in tax filing process. This will help in moving past the
stereotype that the financial and tax matters are to be led by men in their families. Our alliance
with Karandaaz Pakistan is directed towards the execution of strategies to support women
empowerment through focused targeting, and facilitation.
Waqas ul Hasan, CEO Karandaaz Pakistan said,
Karandaaz is pleased to join hands with
Befiler, the pioneer of the digital tax filing platform in Pakistan focusing on introducing women
to the use of technology for the tax filing process. Through the Digital Experiments Program,
Karandaaz is supporting businesses to research on and understand the gaps in the market with
respect to uptake and usage of digital financial services. The objective of the program is to
support digital financial service providers test out different hypotheses on a real consumer base
and compare results of different versions to identify the sweet spot for successful interventions.
We hope that the experiment by Befiler will help in determining possibilities for increasing tax
filing among women leading to further self-sufficiency and empowerment. We are grateful to our
sponsors UK’s FCDO and BMGF whose funding is helping us support such initiatives that make
digitalization a common norm, providing footmarks for future ideas.
The economy of Pakistan is undergoing a change in terms of increased women owned businesses
and the need for women-specific tax training products is becoming imperative. 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 set a new way
ahead for women to be addressed as a target group for tax and financial products.
