The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is exploring a proposal to make PayPak cards essential for government payroll accounts, subsidy programmes and other public sector payments as part of a wider drive to bolster Pakistan’s domestic digital payment system.
LINK has proposed to distribute PayPak cards to all government employees and beneficiaries of subsidy schemes, social welfare programmes and public transit payment systems. The move is designed to minimise Pakistan’s reliance on international payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard.
To promote greater usage, 1LINK has also proposed tax advantages and other perks for transactions carried out using PayPak cards. These include relief on Point-of-Sale (PoS) and e-commerce purchases, and benefits like cashback, discounts and loyalty points for payments for utility bills, fuel, public transport and other government services.
Another suggestion is that government service centers like as NADRA, Excise and Passport offices be fitted with PoS terminals that accept payments through PayPak cards to make digital transactions more accessible to citizens.
The initiatives are part of SBP’s long-term aim to improve Pakistan’s local payment infrastructure by promoting the usage of PayPak and Raast instead of depending on international card schemes.
The central bank said it has already taken many measures to grow the PayPak ecosystem. These include co-badged PayPak cards that may be used for domestic and foreign transactions, wider acceptance on e-commerce platforms, advertising marketing and awareness activities to boost consumer adoption.
The SBP claimed these initiatives have improved the functioning of PayPak, raised merchant acceptance and transaction volumes and expedited the deployment of Raast Person-to-Merchant (P2M) digital payments.
The government allotted Rs3.5 billion for the Raast QR-code subsidy project in the FY2025-26 budget, the central bank added. Consequently, the daily P2M transactions jumped from about 60,000 in June 2025 to approximately 1.1 million in June 2026.
The SBP said it will continue to scale the merchant onboarding and promotion of QR-based payments to speed Pakistan’s transition towards a more resilient and inclusive digital payments ecosystem.
