Farooq Awan

The State Bank of Pakistan’s flagship instant-payment platform Raast emerged as the backbone of the country’s digital finance revolution in FY 2024-25, facilitating record transaction volumes and establishing itself as South Asia’s fastest-growing public digital payment network. According to the Annual Payment Systems Review FY 2024-25, Raast has processed 1.9 billion transactions worth PKR 44.3 trillion since its launch.

In FY 2024-25 alone, it handled 1.27 billion transactions valued at PKR 29.6 trillion, a nine-fold surge within three years. The platform’s reach expanded to 45 million registered Raast IDs by June 2025. During the year, SBP rolled out Person-to-Merchant (P2M) and Bulk-Payment modules. These additions enabled real-time corporate disbursements, salary payments, and QR-based retail purchases. Seventeen banks, covering 97 percent of the market, integrated Raast into their corporate portals.

The value of corporate payments routed through Raast skyrocketed from PKR 7.3 billion in July 2024 to PKR 347 billion in June 2025, proving businesses’ growing confidence in real-time settlement and cost-free transfers. The P2M feature brought over 838,000 merchants into the instant-payment ecosystem. SBP and partner banks promoted merchant QR adoption through awareness drives, particularly targeting small retailers, fuel stations, and service providers.

Customers could now scan a code and transfer funds instantly from any bank or wallet, bypassing card networks entirely. By eliminating intermediaries, Raast transactions are faster and cheaper for users, enhancing liquidity and transparency. Analysts say the system has become critical infrastructure for inclusive finance, connecting micro-entrepreneurs and informal-sector workers to formal banking. SBP plans to extend Raast to cross-border remittances and government-to-person (G2P) disbursements.

Integration with the Accountant General Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) portal and social-welfare programmes is currently being tested. Officials maintain that Raast’s interoperability architecture positions Pakistan among the world’s top adopters of instant-payment standards. The review concludes that Raast’s FY 2024-25 performance proves the viability of large-scale, zero-cost digital finance and sets a precedent for regional replication of Pakistan’s public digital infrastructure model.

Credit: INP-WealthPk