Pakistan’s first digital retail bank is about to change hands. The question isn’t just who buys it, it’s what they do with one of Pakistan’s most important financial platforms.
Bloomberg reported on Friday that Telenor, the Norwegian telecom giant, is exploring the sale of its 55% controlling stake in Easypaisa Bank, with Citigroup already hired to manage the process. Initial bids are expected within weeks, and sources say the holding could be worth several hundred million dollars. The remaining 45% stake is held by China’s Ant Group, which makes the identity of Telenor’s buyer a question with real consequences for millions of Pakistanis who rely on the platform every day.
Telenor already left Pakistan once. Last year, the company sold Telenor Pakistan to the PTCL Group for approximately Rs108 billion, or $385 million. Easypaisa was deliberately kept out of that deal, sitting as the company’s last remaining asset in the country. Now that too is on the table, and if a transaction closes, Telenor’s two-decade presence in Pakistan will be entirely wound down.
As DNB Carnegie analyst Christoffer Wang Bjørnsen noted in comments to Bloomberg, investors would likely welcome further simplification of Telenor’s Asian portfolio, and running a licensed digital bank demands capital commitments and compliance expertise that sit uncomfortably inside a telecom holding company.
A Profitable Asset at the Top of Its Cycle
The financials make this a seller’s market. Easypaisa’s full-year 2025 profit after tax came in at Rs17.04 billion, and Q1 2026 profit before tax rose 4.4x year-on-year to Rs3.66 billion. Total assets stand at Rs217.6 billion. Telenor is selling a growing, profitable asset at the top of its earnings cycle, which is precisely when sellers are supposed to sell.
Any buyer is not simply acquiring a digital wallet. They are acquiring:
- More than 50 million registered users and 20 million monthly active users
- Distribution embedded across Pakistan through one of the country’s largest agent networks
- Full digital retail bank approval from the State Bank of Pakistan
- 2.7 billion transactions processed in 2024, valued at roughly Rs9.5 trillion, approximately 9% of Pakistan’s GDP
These are advantages that take years to build from scratch. That combination of scale, profitability, and regulatory approval makes Easypaisa one of the most strategically valuable financial assets in Pakistan today.
Who Could Buy It And What It Means
No buyer has been publicly named, but the realistic field points in a few directions:
- A Pakistani or regional financial institution, the most plausible outcome. A consolidation play that integrates Easypaisa’s digital capabilities with conventional products like loans and savings accounts, though large banking groups don’t always move at the speed a digital-first platform requires.
- Ant Group consolidating its position, already holding 45%, full ownership would align Easypaisa with its global embedded finance strategy across emerging markets. There is no public indication Ant intends to bid, but the strategic logic makes them a credible candidate.
- A strategic international investor, looking for exposure to Pakistan’s growing digital economy.
- Another telecom operator, the least likely outcome. Globally, telecoms are exiting banking, not entering it.
Nothing changes for users immediately, and any ownership transfer requires State Bank approval before a deal can close. The longer-term picture depends entirely on what the new owner prioritises.
Easypaisa’s future growth in lending, wealth management, and remittances will depend on continued investment in an increasingly competitive market. An owner with genuine ambition will have an enormous platform to build on. An owner focused on cost extraction will find the competition less forgiving than it looks.
For Telenor, this is the final chapter of a two-decade story in Pakistan. For whoever buys Easypaisa, it is the beginning of something much larger.
