Page 25 - CMA Journal (July-August 2025)

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW
Exclusive Interview

ICMA: Looking back at your journey from NayaPay to on cards or costly intermediaries, customers can pay
NIFT ePay and now Seen Tarbi for FinTech, what key directly from their bank accounts in a faster, cheaper,
moments or decisions have shaped your career in the and more secure way. This shift benefits not just
fintech space? consumers but also merchants and financial
institutions, as it reduces transaction costs, expands
Syed Faraz Javed: Each step in my journey has been
about creating impact in an emerging digital finance financial reach, and improves efficiency. In the long run,
account-based payments will encourage innovation—
ecosystem. At NayaPay, being a founding member gave
me the chance to contribute directly to one of Pakistan’s from embedded finance solutions to AI-driven personal
financial management. I see this change as the
first e-Money Institutions (EMIs), which was a bold move
at a time when adoption was still uncertain. Later, at NIFT foundation for a more inclusive, transparent, and
digitally empowered economy.
ePay, I focused on building one of Pakistan’s earliest
interoperable payment gateways offering unified ICMA: Your time at NIFT ePay saw the platform grow
services. The decision to prioritize partnerships with into a key player in Pakistan’s digital payments
banks, merchants, and regulators was pivotal, as it landscape. What do you feel were your most
enabled trust and rapid adoption. impactful contributions there?
Now, at Seen Tarbi, I am working on Saudi Arabia’s open Syed Faraz Javed: At NIFT ePay, I had the opportunity to
banking initiative through Seen Tarbi for Fintech. The work on transforming a traditional financial institution
decision to shift my career regionally was driven by the into a forward-looking digital payments enabler. My
opportunity to be part of a structured and most impactful contributions were threefold:
forward-looking regulatory framework, shaping the
• Building trust with banks, regulators, partners, and
future of finance in KSA.
customers, which was critical to onboarding
ICMA: At Seen Tarbi, you are leading work on the stakeholders in a new and untested digital
XSquare platform to promote account-based payments model.
payments. What excites you most about this shift,
• Creating interoperability, where we linked multiple
and how do you see it changing the way people pay?
banks and institutions through a unified platform,
Syed Faraz Javed: What excites me most about laying the groundwork for ecosystem-wide
account-based payments is how they reimagine the adoption.
fundamentals of digital transactions. Instead of relying

“ la t ors
When fintechs, banks, and regulators
work together, the result is a more
inclusive, efficient, and trustworthy y
de
financial system. Regulators provide
the clarity and guardrails that give e
innovators the confidence to invest st

and scale, while fintechs bring
agility and new ideas to the table “

Syed Faraz Javed

Chief Digital Technology Officer at Seen
Tarbi for FinTech (X² Platform), Saudi Arabia
and former CIO of NayaPay

ICMA’s Chartered Management Accountant, Jul-Aug 2025 23