March 25, 2021 (MLN): Total payment transactions done in the country grew by 14% in volume and 4% value-wise during Q2FY21, compared to the preceding quarter, according to the State Bank of Pakistan’s Payment Systems Review report.
While PRISM – the real-time payment gateway for mostly interbank dealings – transactions only edged up 3% both volume and value-wise during the latest quarter, e-banking witnessed respective increases of 17% and 12%. Meanwhile, paper-based payments saw their amount rise by 3% and numbers by 8%.
However, compared to Q2FY20, value floated through PRISM – which accounts for the largest share in payments in terms of gross amount – actually slipped by 2.17% to Rs94.91 trillion from Rs97.02tr. The volume of paper-based transactions also fell by a steep 13.7% to 104.8 million from 121.5m. On the other hand, e-banking value jumped 21.8% and volume 24.03%, reflecting the growing shift towards online channels.
Under e-banking, there are a couple of major takeaways most important of which is the surge in the use of mobile channels, as its value crossed the Rs1tr-mark for the first time. It rose to Rs1.12tr during Q2FY21, surging by 192% over just Rs382.5bn in the same quarter of the previous year. The corresponding volumes were 44m and 17.8m in the respective periods.
Internet banking also continued its upward journey, recording a value of Rs1.293tr and volume of 22.1m during October-December 2020, higher by 75.69% compared to Rs736 billion and 13.3m in the same quarter of 2019.
Amounts transacted through point of sale and e-commerce channels rose to Rs115bn and 15bn, respectively. This was accompanied with supply-side increases as the number of PoS machines jumped to 62,480 during 2QFY21 from 52,924 in the preceding quarter – likely as BAFL started rolling out newer model terminals into the market after it had pulled out the older ones sometime back – while e-commerce merchants registered with banks increased to 2,411, from 2,164.
Despite respectable growth in e-banking – particularly mobile and internet – Pakistan still has a huge cash-dependency. That can be evidenced by the value of cash withdrawals – both from ATMs and real-time online branches – that clocked in at Rs3.39tr during the quarter under review, jumping by 24pc over Rs2.73tr in Q2FY20. Or better still, take the volume of ATM cash withdrawals – just one of the four heads under the category – at 147.2m, which alone exceeded the combined number of transactions done through mobile, internet and call centre channels by 38.5m.
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