Digital payments in Pakistan surge as ecommerce payments jump 40% in Q3 FY25

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday released its Third Quarterly Payment Systems Review for FY24-25, reporting strong growth in digital payments and expanded adoption of mobile and internet banking services across the country.

According to the report, retail payment volumes grew by 12% in the third quarter of FY25, reaching 2.41 billion transactions, while the overall transaction value increased by 8% to PKR 164 trillion. Digital channels now account for 89% of all retail transactions, underscoring the shift toward a cashless economy.

Mobile app-based platforms, including mobile banking apps, branchless banking (BB) wallets, and e-money wallets, handled 1.69 billion transactions valued at PKR 27 trillion, reflecting 16% growth in volume and a 22% increase in value compared to the previous quarter.

The user base for digital banking services also saw consistent growth. The number of mobile banking app users rose to 22.6 million (up 7%), e-money wallet users increased to 5.3 million (up 12%), BB wallet users reached 68.5 million (up 6%), and internet banking users climbed to 14.1 million (up 7%).

E-commerce payments posted significant gains, increasing 40% in volume to 213 million transactions, and 34% in value to PKR 258 billion. Digital wallets contributed 94% of the e-commerce volume (199.1 million transactions), while card-based online payments accounted for only 6% (13.5 million transactions).

For in-store purchases, 140,861 merchants processed 99 million transactions (up 12%) worth PKR 550 billion (up 8%) using 179,383 point-of-sale (POS) terminals. Additionally, merchants using QR code payments processed 21.7 million transactions amounting to PKR 61 billion.

SBP-operated payment systems also continued to scale. Raast, Pakistan’s instant payment platform, processed 371 million transactions worth PKR 8.5 trillion in Q3. Since its launch, Raast has handled 1.5 billion transactions with a cumulative value exceeding PKR 34 trillion.

The Real-time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) handled 1.5 million large-value payments amounting to PKR 347 trillion during the quarter.