The Cashless Pakistan roadmap moved a step closer to its targets this week as Minister of State for Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani chaired a high-level follow-up meeting at the Finance Division in Islamabad. The session was held as a follow-up to the Prime Minister’s Cashless Pakistan meeting and focused on speeding up digital payment reforms, improving banking services, and making electronic transactions easier for citizens and businesses.
Why the Cashless Pakistan Roadmap Matters Right Now
The timing is important. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had just directed authorities to develop a roadmap with clear timelines and targets for achieving 100% digital payments across Pakistan. The Finance Division meeting that followed was a direct response, translating the PM’s orders into action points.
Launched in June 2025 under the direct supervision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the initiative is built on three core pillars: enhancing public convenience, promoting transparency, and accelerating the formal documentation of the economy through digital payments.
What Happened at the Finance Division Meeting
During the meeting, Minister Bilal Azhar Kayani directed the State Bank of Pakistan to prepare a working paper for approval of the Raast QR Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) scheme. This matters for small shop owners and businesses. The MDR is the small fee charged when a customer pays digitally. Getting this right can decide whether more merchants actually accept digital payments or stick to cash.
Kayani also stressed the need for accurate, validated and non-duplicated data on the Cashless Pakistan dashboard to ensure that progress is measured consistently and transparently. This is a gap that earlier coverage largely missed. Without clean data, the government cannot tell whether a user counted twice on two different apps is actually two people or one, so cleaning this up is critical for real accountability.
Kayani directed private-sector representatives to prepare recommendations on tax policy reforms that could facilitate wider adoption of digital payments.
He stressed that cooperation between banks, government departments, and digital payment companies was necessary to achieve the targets set under the national initiative.
Who Was in the Room
The meeting was attended by senior representatives of the Finance Division, State Bank of Pakistan, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication, NADRA, and Pakistan Digital Authority. Private-sector participants included representatives of the Pakistan Banking Association, Easypaisa Digital Bank, JazzCash, Bank Alfalah, JS Bank, and Karandaaz Pakistan.
Key Numbers Behind the Push
The drive is backed by real progress. Annual digital transactions have increased from 6.9 billion to 11.3 billion in a single year. Active digital payment merchants have grown from 0.5 million to over 2 million under the Raast QR Code initiative, while digital banking users have expanded to more than 135 million.
Financial inclusion has reached 69 percent, while 25 high-impact federal and provincial entities have been identified for complete digitisation through Raast by December this year.
These numbers paint a positive picture. But the government’s focus on deduplicating user data suggests some of these figures could be refined downward once counting is tightened, which is exactly the kind of honest accounting the initiative needs to hold up long-term.
The November 16 Raast Deadline You Should Know About
Here is the detail that most coverage has buried or skipped entirely. From the 16th of this month, all payments under these accounts across the country will be made through the Raast digital system. Cheque-based payments through Easy Assignment Accounts will be discontinued from November 15, 2026. If you or your business deals with government payments, this change is immediate, not distant.
For the broader public, beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme are already receiving all payments through digital wallets. That is one of the largest cash-transfer programmes in the country, now fully digital.
What Comes Next on the Cashless Pakistan Roadmap
Efforts to digitize payments across federal and provincial government institutions are progressing rapidly, with most departments expected to complete the transition by December 2026.
Officials have presented a phased 12-month implementation roadmap covering approval, design, execution, and independent assessment. Independent assessment is a key addition, it means an outside check on whether the targets are genuinely being met, not just reported as met.
The Prime Minister also stressed that to promote a cashless economy, the provision of internet across the country and easy access to technology for the public must be ensured. This is where the digital economy push links directly to Pakistan’s connectivity gap. You can read more about how Pakistan’s internet coverage is expanding in our piece on Pakistan’s internet speeds jumping 60% as 5G users near 2 million.
Separately, digital financial flows are also being reinforced through other channels. The government’s focus on Pakistan’s rising remittances and pushing them through digital channels is part of the same broader strategy to document the economy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Cashless Pakistan roadmap?
The Cashless Pakistan roadmap is the government’s plan to shift all payments, by citizens, businesses, and government departments, to digital channels. It covers digital wallets, Raast QR codes, and online banking, with a goal of 100% digital payments across Pakistan.
What is the role of Bilal Azhar Kayani in this initiative?
Three sub-committees operate under the main Cashless Pakistan Committee to execute the Prime Minister’s directives: Digital Payments Innovation and Adoption led by the Governor of the State Bank, Digital Public Infrastructure led by the Minister of IT, and Digitizing Government Payments led by the Finance Secretary. Kayani chairs the main committee and coordinates all three tracks.
What is Raast and why does it matter?
Raast is Pakistan’s instant digital payment system, run by the State Bank of Pakistan. It allows real-time transfers between bank accounts and digital wallets at no cost to the user. The Raast QR Code system lets merchants accept payments via a simple scan. The Prime Minister has described the Raast QR code payment system as instrumental in achieving the government’s vision of a cashless economy.
When will Pakistan fully go cashless?
There is no single date for a fully cashless Pakistan, but concrete near-term targets exist. Payments in most government institutions are expected to be fully digitised by December 2026. The broader 100% digital payments target for the whole economy has a 12-month phased roadmap that is currently being finalised. The Finance Division is responsible for tracking and reporting progress on these targets.
