KARACHI: Pakistan Real-time Interbank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) processed 1.7 million transactions during FY18 worth Rs361 trillion.

However, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said that despite improvements in digital payment systems, the cash transactions continue to remain in vogue.

The central bank on Wednesday issued ‘Payment Systems Review 2017-18’, reporting stable payment infrastructure facilitating smooth and successful processing of payment transactions in various payment streams.

During 2017-18, according to the SBP review, 466.5m transactions worth Rs15.4tr were carried out using paper-based instruments showing an annual growth of 3.3pc in total volume and 7.7pc in total value of transactions.

Currently, all commercial banks in Pakistan use PRISM to make large sum payments. Both the volume and value of total transactions processed by this system has shown a significant growth of 54.2pc and 29.2pc respectively compared to the previous year.

However, of the total value of PRISM related transactions, government securities settlement hold highest share of 71pc followed by interbank fund transfers at 18pc. Furthermore, of the total PRISM transaction volume, third party customers’ transfers made up for 79pc with total home remittances contributing 33.3pc to these third party transfers.

The SBP report said that despite a rise in card led payments, use of credit cards remains low.

During the year under review, number of payment cards issued rose by 11.7pc to 40.9m from 36.6m last year. Of the total 53.1pc are debit cards, 21pc are ATM only proprietary cards, 21.8pc are Social Welfare Cards and 3.6pc of the remaining tally includes credit cards and remaining pre-paid cards.

Total credit cards in circulation as of June 30, 2018 rose to 1.4m processing 35.5m transactions worth Rs201.5b, whereas up until June 2018, the number of reported debit cards in circulation reached 21.7m processing 441m transactions worth Rs5.1tr.

The gap between credit and debit cards circulation goes on to show the lack of promotion from issuers and the reluctance from consumers to adapt to the post paid instruments.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2018