ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to tighten the definitions of active digital payment users and merchants and introduce tax policy reforms to accelerate Prime Minister’s Cashless Pakistan initiative, as the number of merchants accepting electronic payments quadrupled in the last fiscal year.
Minister of State for Railways and Finance, Bilal Azhar Kayani, on Tuesday chaired a high-level meeting at the Finance Division regarding the Prime Minister’s “Cashless Pakistan” initiative with a focus on digital payments.
The meeting brought together senior public and private sector stakeholders to deliberate on this year’s Cashless Pakistan dashboard indicators on digital payments in order to chart the way forward for the next phase of the initiative.
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The Prime Minister’s Cashless Pakistan initiative has achieved major milestones over the past year, marking significant progress toward a digital economy.
A key driver of this transformation has been the rapid expansion of digital payment infrastructure, with the number of merchants accepting electronic payments growing fourfold last fiscal year alone. In parallel, public sector digitization has advanced: the National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) successfully digitized 99% of payments at its service centers nationwide and passport centers have been enabled to accept digital payments, streamlining identity and administrative processes for millions.
Demonstrating strong institutional adoption, the government has achieved approximately 75% digital payment acceptance across Centralized Entities and Self-Accounting Entities.
Discussions centered on three core indicators: the number of active and unique users of digital channels, the number of digital transactions in a year, and the number of active merchants accepting digital payments. Participants deliberated on the validity of each indicator and its relevance to Cashless Pakistan, and evaluated the merits of various definitions of usage, activity and uniqueness.
The Committee decided to review and set the definition of active app users, active merchants and unique digital payment users. Furthermore, the Minister of State guided the private sector members of the Committee to compile a list of recommendations, for review, to enable Cashless Pakistan through tax policy reforms.
The Minister of State emphasized the importance of sustaining the momentum behind the Government’s Cashless Pakistan agenda, which is aimed at enhancing public convenience, promoting transparency and accelerating the documentation of the economy.
He reiterated the Government’s commitment to working closely with regulators, financial institutions, fintech companies and the wider private sector to expand digital payments and strengthen financial inclusion. He also stressed the need for accurate, validated and non-duplicated data in the dashboard so that progress is measured credibly and transparently.
The meeting was attended by senior representatives of the Finance Division, State Bank of Pakistan, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication (MoITT), NADRA and the Pakistan Digital Authority.
From the private sector, participants included the Chairman of the Pakistan Banking Association (PBA), President of Easypaisa Digital Bank, the Chairman of JazzCash, and the President and CEO of Bank Alfalah, along with senior officials of JS Bank, Karandaaz Pakistan and other leading institutions of the digital payments industry.
The Minister of State directed that coordination between public and private stakeholders be strengthened to achieve the targets of the Cashless Pakistan initiative.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026