Overview

• All federal and provincial payments will shift to digital channels by June 2026, with state‑owned enterprises following by December 2026.
• Pakistan will connect its payment rails to the Arab Monetary Fund’s Buna platform for remittance inflows only, aiming to make transfers faster and more secure.
• The 0.5% merchant discount rate on digital transactions has been withdrawn, with the government absorbing the cost to drive adoption.
• SBP reports digital transactions now exceed Rs1 trillion every nine days, with 96 million mobile app users and 226 million bank accounts in the ecosystem.
• Two digital banks have launched, five more have in‑principle approvals, and Mashreq’s new operation has hired 400 staff deployed across 19 cities.