In June 2026 the State Bank of Pakistan published its payment systems review for January to March 2026. Its headline figure is that digital channels carried 92% of retail payments in the quarter: 3.4 billion of 3.7 billion transactions.
That share has climbed every year. The State Bank's annual review put it at 78% in FY23, 85% in FY24 and 88% in FY25.
Count versus value
By number of payments, Pakistan is now overwhelmingly digital. By value it is not. Digital payments in the quarter were worth PKR 68 trillion out of PKR 168.8 trillion in total retail payments, about 40%.
Most of the rest went through bank branches. Pakistan's 20,232 branches processed 128 million transactions worth PKR 99.5 trillion: a small share of payments by count, and the largest share by value.
92% of payments by count. About 40% by value.
Phones did most of the work
Mobile apps from banks, branchless banking providers and electronic money institutions carried 2.9 billion payments worth PKR 42 trillion, 78% of all digital payments. In FY25, mobile banking apps alone processed more than 6.2 billion transactions, 52% more than the year before.
Agents still matter
Pakistan's 819,397 banking agents handled 155 million transactions worth PKR 1.1 trillion in the quarter. For many people, the agent counter is still how cash moves in and out of the system.
What we take from it
The everyday consumer payment has largely gone digital. The bigger opening now is in the high-value payments that still run through branches, and in payments to merchants and businesses. One caveat: the State Bank's figures only cover payments made through the formal banking and payment system.
Raast, the State Bank's instant payment rail, carried a large share of this growth. Read how Raast works.