The State Bank of Pakistan released its Payment Systems Report for the October through December 2025 quarter on March 20, revealing that digital channels now account for 92 percent of all retail payment transactions in the country.
Raast, Pakistan's instant payment system operated by the SBP, processed 645.7 million transactions valued at Rs18.5 trillion during the quarter. Person-to-person transfers accounted for the bulk of activity at 603 million transactions worth Rs15.7 trillion, a 13 percent increase over the previous quarter. The platform's bulk payment service, used by corporates and government entities, handled over 9 million transactions amounting to Rs2.6 trillion.
Merchant adoption continues to accelerate, with over 2.1 million merchants now onboarded to Raast. QR code-based payments reached Rs288 billion during the quarter, registering a threefold increase that reflects the expanding role of the instant payment platform in everyday retail transactions across the country.
In a significant policy development disclosed alongside the quarterly report, the SBP confirmed plans to route all government payments through Raast by the end of fiscal year 2025-26. The Benazir Income Support Programme, the Pakistan Military Accounts Department, and the Central Directorate of National Savings have each set deadlines between March and June 2026 for achieving full digitization of their disbursement flows through the instant payment platform. This positions Pakistan among the most ambitious timelines globally for moving government payments onto real-time rails.
The total volume of digital transactions in Pakistan reached 3.4 billion during the quarter. At 92 percent of retail payment volume, digital channels have moved from alternative to default in the Pakistani payments landscape, a transformation driven largely by Raast's expanding reach and the regulatory push to reduce cash dependency across the economy.