ISLAMABAD: E-banking transactions grew by 12 percent in volume and 16 percent in value in the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2021-22, the Pakistani central bank said on Monday, as the country’s payment ecosystem continued to grow at a fast pace.

These transactions were conducted via electronic channels, including real-time online branches, ATMs, mobile banking, Internet banking, call center banking, Point of Sale (PoS) and e-commerce.

Two major areas where high adoption in digital payments was witnessed were mobile and Internet banking, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in its first quarterly report of payment systems, covering the period July 2021 till September 2021.

“The number of mobile banking users grew by 4 percent on quarter over quarter (QoQ) basis, reaching a total of 11.3 million. The number of transactions conducted via mobile banking channels was 79.1 million with a value of around PKR 2.2 trillion, showing a QoQ growth of 29 percent by volume and 36 percent by value,” the SBP report read.

“Internet banking also contributed to the upswing in usage of e-Banking services by registering 31 percent QoQ growth in Internet banking users who conducted 30 million transactions amounting to PKR 1.9 trillion. This amounts to 6 percent progress in terms of volume and 10 percent increase in the value of these transactions on QoQ basis.”

The retail banking sector continued to show adoption of digital payments, while overall e-commerce transactions recorded an impressive QoQ growth of 87 percent by volume and 21 percent by value, though the number of e-commerce merchants remained almost the same as of the last quarter, according to the report.

During the quarter, 12.7 million e-commerce-related transactions amounting to Rs22.3 billion were conducted using digital payment channels. Similarly, the number of merchant POS machines increased by 10 percent QoQ, reaching to 79,134 in the country. These machines processed 28.1 million card-based transactions at merchant locations, amounting to almost Rs134.9 billion, which showed QoQ increase of 16.1 percent by volume and 10.6 percent by value.

As of end-September 2021, the report said, there were 46.2 million total cards in circulation, which mainly comprised debit cards (64 percent), social welfare cards (22 percent), ATM-only cards (10 percent), credit cards (4 percent) and prepaid cards (0.3 percent).

Paper-based transactions recorded an increase of 5 percent in volume and 3 percent in value, which may be attributed to people returning to bank branches as pandemic-related restrictions were eased.

In large-value or wholesale payment segment, transactions processed through the Pakistan Real-Time Interbank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) recorded a total of 1.1 million transactions amounting to Rs159.1 trillion, which was 7 percent higher than the preceding quarter.