KARACHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday launched the State Bank of Pakistan’s Free Raast Person-to-Person (P2P) Instant Payments System at a ceremony in Islamabad.

A press release issued by the SBP said that Raast, a flagship initiative of the SBP, is a payment system platform that enables various types of transactions among different stakeholders such as organisations, businesses and persons.

“The objective of this initiative is to promote digitisation and financial inclusion in the country. In the first phase of Raast, launched in January 2021, transactions from organisations to persons, generally referred to as Bulk Payments, were enabled. The second phase is designed to facilitate Person-to-Person (P2P) transactions under Raast,” the press release said.

Speaking on the occasion, Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin appreciated the SBP for the progress made in digitisation. He expressed his confidence that the forthcoming phases of Raast including ‘payment to merchant’ will play an important role in facilitating the financial transaction of masses and thus increasing their valuable contribution in the economy.

Platform now enables instant person-to-person transactions

SBP Governor Dr Reza Baqir said that individuals can use this platform in their transactions just like cash and they will not have to pay any fees or charges for using this payment system. More importantly, Raast is secure and convenient and free of risks compared to cash, he added.

Raast is easy and simple to use as it allows connecting bank account to user’s mobile number, called Raast ID. The facility can be used on mobile apps and internet banking portals of banks.

In January, the SBP had issued the digital bank licensing framework that provides flexible requirements to setup digital banks in Pakistan. For now, only five licenses for digital banks will be issued and interested parties can apply for a licence until March 31.

During fiscal year 2021, 1.2 billion transactions of $500 billion value were processed through retail e-Banking channels. These transactions showed year-on-year growth of 30.6 per cent in volume and 31.1pc in value.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022