The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) will officially launch its latest payment and settlement system, named Prism Plus, on Tuesday.

A statement issued on Monday by the central bank said Prism Plus is built on the ISO 20022 financial messaging standard, which supports structured and data-rich financial communication, enabling enhanced transparency, interoperability, and automation across the payment and settlement ecosystem.

The system includes new features for liquidity management, transaction queuing and prioritisation, and scheduling of future-dated payments.

Prism Plus will make Pakistan’s financial system faster, safer and more modern, according to the SBP.

It said efficient money transfer, better liquidity management of securities transactions and minimal risks in the system would be achieved with the introduction of Prism Plus.

The statement added that the launch event will be chaired by State Bank Governor Jameel Ahmed and will be attended by senior SBP officials, representatives of financial institutions and key stakeholders from the financial sector.

“This development is a significant milestone in the ongoing development of Pakistan’s financial infrastructure,” the SBP said.

This new system is a significant step towards modernising the way funds and government securities transactions are handled in the country’s financial structure.

The central bank added that the new system had two main components:

• A faster Real-time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) system for large-value payments between different participants
• A brand-new Central Securities Depository (CSD) that manages government securities, such as T-bills, PIBs, and other government securities.

The system has been developed in alignment with SBP’s Vision 2028, which aims to establish a modern, inclusive, and robust financial ecosystem.

Last month, Ahmed had said that the institution planned to launch a pilot for a digital currency and was finalising legislation to regulate virtual assets as the government ramped up efforts to modernise the country’s financial system.

In June, retail payment volumes rose by 12 per cent year-on-year to 2,408 million transactions in the third quarter of FY25, while the overall transaction value increased by 8pc to Rs164 trillion.

The SBP-operated payment systems — Raast and the Real-Time Gross Settlement System (RTGS) — played a critical role in enabling faster digital payments.

Raast processed 371m transactions worth Rs8.5tr during the quarter, bringing its cumulative total to over 1.5bn transactions valued at more than Rs34tr since launch. RTGS facilitated 1.5m large-value transactions amounting to Rs347tr during the period.