KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) was working with the World Bank experts to develop a future payment system specific to Pakistan, said SBP Executive Director Muhammad Ashraf Khan on Thursday.

At the 14th annual e-Banking conference, organised by Total Communications in collaboration with 1Link and Pakistan Software House Association for IT and ITES (P@SHA), he said the central bank was in the process to issue guidelines on card security and prepaid cards.

Mr Khan said that the SBP is engaged with the World Bank to beef up security checks on electronic payments (e-payments) as technological advan­cement is playing a pivotal role in financial inclusion of un­ba­nked people in the country.

“The SBP in collaboration with the World Bank and other stakeholders has been striving to strengthen the electronic delivery channels through automation and digitisation.”

He said that the alternate delivery channels, like e-banking and branchless banking, have emerged as supporting pillars of SBP’s vision for financial inclusion.

“Over the past five years, e-banking transactions have witnessed a phenomenal growth. Volume of e-banking transactions has doubled. The number of users of internet banking has reached to over 1.8 million,” he added.

“A total of 100m transactions worth Rs526 billion were carried out during July-September 2015. More than 13m mobile wallets have been opened so far and these numbers are increasing at a faster pace.”

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2016