Active digital payment merchants surpass 2m, says state minister

Minister of State for Railways and Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani chaired a high-level review meeting at the Finance Division to assess the one-year progress of the government’s ‘Cashless Pakistan’ initiative.

The review highlighted significant progress across the digital payments’ ecosystem, with annual digital transactions rose from 6.9 billion to 11.3 billion, read a statement issued on Monday.

The active digital payment merchants increasing from 0.5 million to over 2 million, supported by the government’s Raast QR Code initiative, while digital banking users expanded to more than 135 million.

Launched in June 2025 under the direct supervision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the initiative is built on three core pillars: enhancing public convenience, promoting transparency, and accelerating the formal documentation of the economy through digital payments.

During the meeting, the minister also noted encouraging progress in financial inclusion, which increased to 69%, while the gender gap continued to narrow through targeted interventions.

He further reviewed progress on public sector digitisation, with 25 high-impact federal and provincial entities identified for complete digitization through Raast by December 2026.

Kayani noted the progress made on digitising government to people (G2P) payments with approximately 75% digital payments acceptance at both centralised and self accounting entities.

He emphasised the importance of sustaining the momentum to further accelerate Pakistan’s digital transformation.

The minister reiterated the government’s commitment to working closely with regulators, financial institutions, fintech companies, and the private sector to expand digital payments, strengthen financial inclusion, and support a transparent and documented economy.

To ensure absolute transparency and the prudent use of public funds, he emphasised on validating the progress, streamlining reporting gaps, and eliminating data duplication.

A third-party has been hired by the government which has started the assessments to ensure transparency, he added.