Pakistan goes cashless — fast
Pakistan's digital payments volume reached Rs167 trillion (about $6 billion) and accounted for roughly 92% of retail transactions in Q2 FY26, driven largely by mobile banking adoption (x.com). That penetration shows mobile rails are already handling day‑to‑day retail flows at scale — a signal for fintechs targeting remittances and merchant payments in the region (x.com).
Pakistan’s central bank report shows 3.4 billion retail transactions were processed in Q2 FY26 (October–December 2025). (sbp.org.pk)) Mobile app–based payments reached 2.6 billion transactions and were valued at Rs40 trillion, accounting for about 83% of all digital payments. (sbp.org.pk)) Digital channels together processed 3.1 billion transactions worth Rs64 trillion in the quarter, while internet‑banking volumes rose 11% and internet‑banking value climbed 22%. (sbp.org.pk)) QR payments doubled to roughly 60 million transactions and jumped in value to around Rs288 billion, with about 1.94 million merchants onboarded during the period. (bloompakistan.com)) Person‑to‑person transfers grew 13% to 603 million transactions valuing Rs15.7 trillion, person‑to‑merchant (P2M) hit 33.6 million transactions (Rs167.6 billion), and bulk payments reached 9.2 million (Rs2.6 trillion). (bloompakistan.com)) Outstanding payment cards rose to about 66.7 million, with debit cards comprising roughly 87% of that stock. (bloompakistan.com)) The SBP has signalled a policy push toward the instant‑payment platform Raast—announcing plans to route all government payments through Raast by end‑FY26—and Raast previously handled roughly 796 million transactions worth Rs6.4 trillion in Q2 FY25. (profit.pakistantoday.com.pk))
