E-banking shows steady growth in third quarter of FY22

KARACHI: The total e-banking transactions showed a growth of 2.6 per cent in volume and 6.5 per cent in value on a quarterly basis during the third quarter of fiscal year 2022, data by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) showed.

The overall growth in the e-banking transactions was 32.7 per cent in volume and 57.5 per cent in value on a year-on-year basis.

A major portion of this growth was driven by continuing widening in internet banking and mobile banking transactions, the SPB said.

The central released its third quarterly report of Payment Systems for the Fiscal year 2021/22 on Thursday for the period January to March 2022. The report presents an overall viewpoint of growing digital adoption in the country.

The number of registered internet banking users reached 7.6 million showing a growth of 10.6 per cent resulting in a double digit-growth of 13.5 per cent and 19.9 per cent in volume and value of transactions respectively on a quarterly basis.

Through this channel a total 38.3 million transactions worth Rs2.90 trillion were processed. The mobile banking transactions volume was 101.5 million with value of Rs3.08 trillion which amounted to a growth of 8.1 per cent and 5.4 per cent respectively on a quarterly basis.

Under the retail sector, the Point of Sale (POS) transactions continued to show an upward trend as the number of POS terminals installed reached 96,975 compared with 92,153 in the previous quarter, showing an increase of 5.2 per cent.

Through these POS terminals, a total of 38.3 million transactions were processed that amounted to Rs189.7 billion in value, showing a quarterly growth of 21.9 per cent in volume and 6.5 per cent in value of transactions.

Similarly, the number of ATMs reached 16,897 with transactions volume and value of 171.3 million and Rs2.43 trillion respectively.

The number of e-commerce merchants on boarded with the banks also showed a double digit growth of 12 per cent reaching to 4,445.

A total of 9.1 million e-commerce transactions were conducted which amounted to Rs27 billion during the quarter where volume and value showed an impressive growth of 62.8 per cent and 77.1 per cent respectively on a yearly basis.

The paper based transactions declined 2.9 per cent in volume though its value remained almost at the same level posting only 0.6 per cent growth over the previous quarter.

In the case of RTGS (PRISM), the real-time gross settlement system of Pakistan, a total of 1.08 million transactions amounting to Rs155.7 trillion were processed.

A total of 47.2 million payment cards were in circulation at the end of the third quarter of fiscal year 2022, mostly comprised of debit cards with 62.3 per cent, social welfare cards 23.3 per cent, ATM only cards 10.3 per cent, credit cards 3.7 per cent and lastly Pre-paid cards 0.3 per cent.