Commercial banks in Pakistan may have held back on the private sector lending and consumer credit products, but they are making it easier for their customers to conduct their general banking transactions. The central bank’s official data shows that between January and December 2012, e-banking transactions totalled 296.3 million in volume, settling payments worth Rs27.3 trillion.
As per the State Bank of Pakistan’s latest quarterly ‘Payment Systems Review’, for the three-month period ending December 31, 2012, there is yet again double-digit growth seen in the electronic payments within Pakistani banking sector, and the various means and modes of e-banking are also gaining traction.
By December-end last year, the e-banking infrastructure had further expanded. To illustrate, the SBP Review shows that the number of ATM installations had reached 6,232 across the country, servicing nearly 21 million plastic cards, which includes nearly 19.5 million debit cards and ATM-only cards. Moreover, the real-time online banking service was being offered at 94 percent of the total bank branches in the country (10,523).
Meanwhile, the number of Point-of-Sale merchant machines remained steady, showing no significant growth. This Payment Review does not include the branchless banking sector.
The robust growth in both the volume and value of overall e-banking transactions has carried on in the quarter under review. Growing over 11 percent from previous quarter, the volume of transactions reached almost 80 million in 2QFY13. Similarly, an 18 percent growth propelled the quarterly value of these transactions to reach Rs7.5 trillion.
Online branches handled high-value payments, settling Rs6.94 trillion in 23 million transactions. Though the ATM transactions dominated the volume pie with 48.5 million withdrawals, their value contribution was only 6.2 percent, as customers took out cash worth Rs475 billion in the three months. PoS terminals settled 4.5 million transactions totaling Rs22.1 billion, depicting growth of five percent and six percent, respectively.
Other more personal (hence convenient) forms of e-banking channels also recorded decent growth in the period under review. The Internet Banking generated Rs118.2 billion of payments in 2.2 million transactions, while the Mobile Banking platform (excluding the BB sector) yielded Rs5.6 billion from 0.9 million transactions. However, the Call Centre Banking recorded a decline of nearly five percent in volume and over two percent in value, and was a source of 0.15 million banking transactions settling two billion rupees.
Outside the scope of e-banking channels for customers, the SBP reports higher growth in institutional electronic payments settlements, too. The ‘Real Time Gross Settlement’ system – which includes settlements against securities, interbank funds transfers, and clearing of retail cheques – channelled Rs42.1 trillion in 0.12 million transactions, a QoQ growth of 9.4 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.
The growing momentum of e-banking transactions is a good sign for Pakistan’s economy, most part of which still relies on paper-based transactions. However, for this growth to continue, various channels would have to be deployed to meet specific banking needs of different customers. Moreover, collaboration and convergence with branchless banking would also expand the e-banking footprint.
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