Pakistan: HugoBank Opens Pilot Accounts on Singapore-Built HugoHub Platform
Singapore-built banking platform HugoHub has gone live at its first regulated bank, HugoBank, one of Pakistan’s new digital retail banks. HugoBank opened its first pilot customer account on the platform on 25 September and is now testing accounts, savings “pots” and debit cards before asking the central bank for a full commercial launch in early 2027.
Key facts
- HugoHub announced on 2 November 2026 that HugoBank is its first live deployment at a regulated bank; the first pilot account was opened on 25 September.
- HugoBank runs its pilot under a restricted licence from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the country’s central bank, which approved the pilot in August.
- The pilot covers current and savings accounts, gamified money pots and debit cards. Retail lending and SME products are planned only after commercial approval.
- The platform links to NADRA, Pakistan’s national ID database, for biometric checks, and to the 1LINK interbank network and Raast, the SBP’s instant payment system.
- HugoBank is backed by Singapore’s Atlas Consolidated, which built HugoHub, together with Pakistan’s Getz Group and Muller & Phipps.
What HugoHub actually does
HugoHub sells the technology “plumbing” a bank runs on. It covers the core ledger and account servicing, payments, card management and savings tools, all connected to the customer’s mobile app. Staff use a separate operating portal for administration, customer service and risk monitoring.
For Pakistan, the team had to add a long list of local features. Customers are verified with their fingerprints against NADRA records. Money moves through 1LINK, the switch that connects Pakistani banks and ATMs, and through Raast, which lets people send money instantly between accounts. The system also handles withholding tax, Zakat (the Islamic charity levy that banks in Pakistan deduct from some savings accounts), local regulatory reports and several languages.
The company’s founders previously built and ran Hugosave, a consumer money app in Singapore. HugoHub says it is now talking to mid-tier banks, insurance brokers, finance companies and fintechs, and that its modular design lets an existing bank replace only selected parts of its systems.
Why it matters
Pakistan has nearly 260 million people, yet World Bank data show that only slightly more than a quarter of adults had a bank or mobile-money account in 2024. The SBP introduced a digital bank framework in 2022 to close that gap, and in 2023 it gave in-principle approval to five digital retail banks, including HugoBank.
The rules are strict about testing. A digital bank must run a pilot for at least three and at most nine months before it can apply for full commercial approval. HugoBank’s CEO, Asim Hasan, has described the trial as a controlled exercise with few users, starting with employees and then widening to people linked to the consortium.
HugoBank says it wants to serve people left out of the formal system because they cannot show payslips or other documents, as well as small businesses and overseas Pakistanis sending money home. Pakistan received a record US$41.6 billion in remittances in its 2026 financial year, so that market is large. The bank was also built to be Sharia-compliant from the start, since Pakistan’s banking system is required to move fully to Islamic banking by 2028.
For the wider region, the deal is a test of whether a Southeast Asian fintech can export its banking stack to a big, fast-digitising South Asian market. Many new digital banks across Asia use off-the-shelf cloud cores instead of legacy systems, and a working reference client in Pakistan gives HugoHub something concrete to show other lenders.
What to watch
- Whether HugoBank finishes its pilot within the SBP’s nine-month window and wins commercial approval in early 2027 as planned.
- How quickly it adds lending, SME accounts and remittance services once it is fully licensed.
- Whether HugoHub signs a second bank or finance company, in Pakistan or elsewhere in Asia.
Related on FinDeskAsia: ASEAN’s cross-border QR payments record and how Malaysia’s payment system works.
Sources: TNGlobal (Nov 2026), Fintech News Singapore (Nov 2026), The News, Pakistan (Sep 2026), Business Recorder (Aug 2026).
