In a significant move for Pakistan’s financial sector, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Jameel Ahmed announced on Friday that the country has successfully integrated its instant payment system, Raast, with the Arab Monetary Fund’s Buna platform. This strategic link enables transactions in Pakistani rupees between Pakistan and Arab nations, streamlining cross-border payments and potentially enhancing trade relations with these countries.
Facilitating Cross-Border Transactions in Pakistani Rupees
The integration of Raast with the Buna platform is expected to simplify and speed up cross-border transactions by facilitating payments in Pakistani rupees. This move is seen as a key step towards boosting trade and financial cooperation between Pakistan and Arab countries, reducing the dependency on foreign currencies like the U.S. dollar for trade transactions.
New Partnership to Enable Payments to China
In addition to this, the SBP is also working on a system that will allow e-wallet users in Pakistan to make direct payments to China via online banking channels. This development follows the approval of a partnership between Pakistani and Chinese financial firms, which aims to simplify online shopping and ticket purchases in China for Pakistani users. This new system will foster closer financial ties between Pakistan and China, facilitating smoother online transactions.
National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) 2028
The SBP has also unveiled plans for the third National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) 2028 during the fiscal year 2024-25. This initiative sets ambitious goals to expand banking access across Pakistan, with the aim of increasing banking coverage to 75% of the adult population by 2028, up from the current 60%. A key focus of the new strategy is to ensure gender equality, targeting 25% of banking users to be women by the target year.
Building on Previous Financial Inclusion Strategies
The NFIS 2028 builds on the foundations of previous strategies, NFIS 2020 and NFIS 2023, by addressing challenges in the financial sector and improving access to banking services. The new plan not only seeks to increase financial inclusion but also to enhance the utilization and quality of financial services across Pakistan.
