The government will keep paying toward the fees on Raast QR payments, the finance ministry said on Friday. Shops that take QR payments through their bank apps should therefore not be left carrying the full cost of each transaction, at least for now.
According to the ministry, Shehbaz Sharif made the call, and Bilal Azhar Kayani, the minister of state for finance, relayed it to senior bank executives (presidents, chief executives and digital chiefs) at a meeting on the Cashless Pakistan Initiative. The statement offers no new rate, budget or end date.
The support exists because banks charge shops a merchant discount rate on each card or QR payment, and the government wants small sellers to switch from cash. Under a State Bank circular, Rs. 3.5 billion was set aside for Raast person-to-merchant QR payments made between 1 September 2025 and 30 June 2026. The payout is 0.5% of each payment or Rs. 100, whichever is smaller, split equally between the shop’s bank and the customer’s bank.
The circular’s window closed on 30 June 2026, so a continued subsidy matters for QR payments made after that date. The circular also allows banks a further charge of at most 0.25% for signing merchants up and servicing them. Payouts come quarterly, and should claims overshoot Rs. 3.5 billion, every bank’s percentage is trimmed equally to fit.
Officials of the State Bank, the chief executive of Raast and officials from Karandaaz also attended. The ministry said Kayani wants the banks to play a bigger part in spreading digital payments, and invited their views on getting better results from the cashless drive.
Kayani used the meeting to push the banks to do more for digital payments, and told them the government’s Cashless Committee is working on new indicators and fresh targets. He also described progress against the targets set for fiscal year 2026, without the ministry’s statement giving the figures.
Kayani also gave SBP homework: sit down with the banks’ digital chiefs, Raast’s chief executive and Karandaaz, and return with firm proposals for the Cashless Committee. The agenda is how easy QR and other digital payments are to use, and what would bring in more users.
