External relationships Department
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ERD / M & PRD / PR / 01 / 2021-117 |
October 22, 2021 |
The introduction of digital payments continues its upward trend in FY21
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) today published its Annual Payment Systems Review (PSR) for Fiscal Year 2020-21, which shows strong growth in digital financial transactions in the country. SBP continued its quest to develop a robust and efficient payment ecosystem in Pakistan.
According to PSR, transactions made through SBP’s high-volume payments segment known as the Real-time Inter-Bank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) saw 60.0% growth in number of transactions (volume) and 12.8% in value year over year. E-banking transactions also recorded a year-on-year growth of 31.1%, which underlines a significant increase in the adoption of digital payment methods. This growth was due to the strong acceptance of mobile banking (29% increase in the number of users, 133.6% or increase in volume or value). This promising growth was achieved through 27 banks offering app-based banking, as well as other companies offering innovative payment solutions for accepting digital transactions.
In FY21, the adoption of digital payments for retail transactions continued to show an upward trend. Due to the active efforts of the SBP, the number of card-accepting POS devices increased by 47%. Transactions processed through POS machines reached 88.8 million for 453.1 billion PKR, showing a year-over-year growth of 26.3% in volume and 24.4% in value of transactions. The same trend was also reflected in e-commerce transactions. The number of e-commerce retailers reached 3,003, a double-digit growth of 76%. Consumers made 21.9 million online transactions valued at PKR 60.6 billion through these locally registered e-commerce retailers in FY21, a significant increase of 114.8% or 74.1% compared to transaction volume compared to the previous year. These trends indicate healthy growth in fueling a more digitally integrated economy.
On the card issuing side, as at the end of June 2021, a total of 45.9 million cards were in circulation, mainly consisting of debit cards (65.0%), social welfare cards (18.4%) and ATM cards (12.6%). Credit cards (3.7%) and prepaid cards (0.3%). Together, these cards processed 708.7 million transactions totaling PKR 8.4 trillion in fiscal 2021. The number of debit cards at the end of fiscal 2021 was 29.8 million, representing a year-over-year growth of 11.8% and an annualized growth of 13.8% over the past 4 years. ATM transactions also rose to 598.7 million for a total of 8.1 trillion PKR. This equates to growth of 16.9% by volume and 25.6% by value on a YoY basis.
The core infrastructure of the country’s payment systems remained operationally resilient. All channels of the payment systems showed significant growth. SBP assumes that the growth dynamic in all key areas of the digital payment ecosystem will continue to increase in the future. Modernizing the country’s payment system and infrastructure is a key priority for which SBP will continue to work to create a conducive regulatory environment. The full report can be found at Weblink
https://www.sbp.org.pk/PS/PDF/FiscalYear-2020-21.pdf
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