KARACHI - The users of SBP’s instant digital payment system, Raast, reached 25.8 million during the second quarter of the fiscal year 2023 while transaction value has reached Rs578.6 billion, depicting a significant growth of 488 percent. It was stated in the State Bank of Pakistan’s first and second quarterly report of Payment Systems for the Fiscal Year 2022-23, released here on Tuesday. The report, covering the period July to December 2022, presented major highlights of the payments ecosystem in the country and a comprehensive analysis of transactions processed through the payments infrastructure.
As per the report, Raast -SBP’s initiative for providing an instant cost efficient person to person digital payment system- has witnessed promising growth as the number of Raast users increased from 15.0 million as of end Q4-FY22 to 21.1 million by Q1-FY23 and 25.8 million by Q2-FY23 showing a growth of 72.1% since Jun-22.
The number of transactions processed through Raast increased from 7.1 million to 21.5 million depicting a growth of 202.1% while transactions’ value increased from Rs.98.4 billion to Rs578.6 billion showing a remarkable growth of 488.1% since Q4-FY22. During the quarter Q1-FY23, total e-banking transactions witnessed a growth of 4.1% in volume while value declined by 5.0%, the report said, adding that however, in quarter Q2-FY23, e-banking showed 12.6% growth in volume and 6.5% increase in value of transactions reaching 515 million and Rs.42.5 trillion respectively.
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Since Q4-FY22, internet and mobile phone banking users have increased by 21% to 10.1 million users and 22% to 15.0 million users respectively. Transactions through internet and mobile phone banking channel also showed continued growth in both quarters with combined quarterly growth of both channels of 11% by volume and 11% by value in Q1-FY23 while in Q2- FY23, volume grew by 18% and value by 15%, the report said.
Number of e-commerce transactions in both quarters declined but the value increased by 11.6% during Q1-FY23 and 2.2% in Q2-FY23, it added. Point-of-Sale (POS) deployed across the country grew by 3.8% since the previous fiscal year FY22 reaching to 108,899 by the end of Q2-FY23. During July to December 2022, a total of 94.8 million transactions amounting to Rs.493.2 billion were processed at POS terminals.
Meanwhile, the number of ATMs also increased from 17,133 in Q4-FY22 to 17,547 by Q2-FY23. Payment cards in circulation issued by Banks/ MFBs and EMI at the quarter end of Q4-FY22 was 43.0 million which increased to 46.5 million by the end of Q2-FY23. The majority of the issued cards were Debit cards (73.8%) followed by Social Welfare cards (21.8%), Credit cards (4.1%) and Prepaid cards (0.2%).
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The Nation, 16 Apr, 2023