Pakistan mobile banking users jump to 137 million as cashless push gathers pace
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
A Pakistani vendor counts currency notes at his roadside stall in Islamabad, Pakistan, on December 15, 2011. (AFP/File)
- QR code-enabled merchants triple to more than two million in a year
- PM Shehbaz Sharif orders overseas remittances to be fully digitized
The number of mobile banking app users in Pakistan has risen by more than 40 percent over the past year to 137 million, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Tuesday as he reviewed progress on the government’s efforts to transform the country’s economy through digital payments.
Pakistan has been accelerating its shift toward a cashless economy to improve financial inclusion, increase transparency and reduce reliance on cash transactions, while encouraging businesses and government institutions to adopt digital payment systems.
“The increase in the number of mobile banking app users from 95 million to 137 million in one year is a major achievement,” the prime minister said while chairing a meeting on digital payments, according to a statement from his office.
“Banks and financial institutions should play their full role in promoting a cashless economy,” he added.
Sharif praised the economic team for increasing the number of active merchants using QR codes for digital payments by 300 percent over the past year and directed authorities to step up awareness campaigns encouraging more businesses to adopt the technology.
According to a briefing presented at the meeting, the number of merchants accepting digital payments through QR codes rose to over two million between June 2025 and June 2026, while Pakistan recorded 11.9 billion digital transactions during the fiscal year ending in June.
Officials also said 92 percent of workers’ remittances received over the past year were transferred digitally, while the government was instructed to digitize all remittance inflows.
Sharif also praised the digitization of welfare payments under the Benazir Income Support Program, describing the move as more transparent, faster and easier for beneficiaries.
Officials said a third-party validation of the government’s cashless economy initiative was underway, with a final report and recommendations expected in November.
Reference Link:- https://www.arabnews.com/node/2650832/pakistan
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
