The number of transactions conducted via mobile banking channels grew 29 percent by volume and 36 percent by value at 79.1 million and Rs 2.2 trillion during the July-September quarter of 2021-22.
The quarterly report of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) released on Monday revealed that e-banking defined as transactions conducted through electronic channels (like, ATMs, mobile banking, Real-time Online Branches, internet banking, call center banking, POS, and e-commerce) flourished in both volume and value during the quarter under analysis as it showed a rise of 12 percent and 16 percent, respectively, in Q1FY22 over the same quarter of FY21.
According to the report, Pakistan’s payment ecosystem, particularly through digital platforms, sustained its abrupt pace of growth.
Two key areas where high adoption in digital payments was observed are mobile and internet banking.
Read more: Strong growth in digital financial transactions in the country in Q2 FY2020/21
Moreover, the number of mobile banking users increased by 4 percent on a quarter-on-quarter (QoQ) basis, getting a total of 11.3 million.
Internet banking also played a major role in the improvement of the usage of e-banking services by recording the 31 percent development of internet banking users who conducted 30 million transactions costing Rs 1.9 trillion.
Consequently, this sums to 6 percent progress in terms of volume while a 10 percent rise in the value of these transactions during the quarter. “Retail sector continued to show adoption of digital payments,” said the report.
Besides, the overall e-commerce transactions registered a growth of 87 percent by volume and 21 percent by value on a quarter-to-quarter basis.
“During the quarter, 12.7 million e-commerce related transactions amounting to Rs 22.3 billion were conducted using digital payment channels,” said the report.
Likewise, the figure of merchant Point-of-Sale (POS) machines also showed an increase of 10percent reaching 79,134 machines.
“These machines processed 28.1 million card-based transactions at merchant locations amounting to almost Rs 134.9 billion which showed an increase of 16.1 percent by volume and 10.6 percent by value.”
The SBP report further added, “As of end-September 2021, there were 46.2 million total cards in circulation which mainly comprised of debit cards (64 percent), social welfare cards (22 percent), ATM only cards (10 percent), credit cards (4 percent), and prepaid cards (0.3 percent).”
