KARACHI: Pakistan’s payment ecosystem continued to show growth in all the major areas particularly in adoption of digital banking during the second quarter of this fiscal year (FY22) supported by concerted efforts by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

The SBP on Friday released its second quarterly report of payment systems for the fiscal year covering the period October-December 2021. The report presents an encouraging picture of the adoption of digital banking in the country.

According to report, in arge-value (wholesale) payments segment, SBP’s Real-time Inter-Bank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) processed a total of 1.1 million transactions amounting to Rs 161.3 trillion, showing Quarter-on-Quarter (QoQ) growth of 5.9 percent in volume and 1.4 percent in value.

The increasingly favourable behavioural trends of customers towards digital payments accelerated by the pandemic seem to be cementing as the usage of internet and mobile banking both achieved double digit growth of 13.9 percent and 18.8 percent by volume and 28 percent and 35.4 percent by value respectively.

This uptake in e-banking was majorly spurred by 11.9 million mobile banking users and 6.9 million internet banking users, which amounts to a 5 percent and 0.3 percent increase on QoQ basis.

The report revealed that during the quarter under review, customers’ inclination towards use of e-banking continued as it rose to 10.7 percent in volume and 22.8 percent in value of transactions on QoQ basis.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022