Cashless Economy Initiative 2025: Pakistan govt orders independent audit

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan government has decided to conduct an independent review and audit of the it’s ‘Cashless Economy Initiative 2025 design, implementation, impact, and governance mechanisms.

The government has launched an ambitious national initiative to transition government systems and the broader economy towards a cashless and digitally enabled framework. This strategic shift is anchored in a broader vision to promote transparency, increase financial inclusion, enhance public service delivery, expand the tax base, and reduce leakages in government transactions.

A high-level committee chaired by the Prime Minister was established in June 2025 to oversee the implementation of this initiative, with weekly reviews to ensure progress. The directions of the Prime Minister and the work plan for all agencies have been captured in the directives and a roadmap which will be provided to the selected bidder.

Govt pushes for cashless economy

Three functional committees were also constituted to drive innovation and implementation in the areas of Digital Payments Innovation and Adoption, Digital Public Infrastructure, and Government Payments.

Key components of the initiative include: digitizing all G2P, P2G Payments, enabling retailers on digital modes of payment, implementation of key infrastructures under the scope of initiatives.

Given the scale, complexity, and national importance of the initiative, the government of Pakistan is seeking the services of a qualified consultancy firm, selected through international competitive bidding process, to conduct an independent review and audit of the initiative’s design, implementation, impact, and governance mechanisms.

The objective of this assignment is to conduct a comprehensive performance audit of the Government’s Cashless Economy initiative, including: periodic review of the progress against set targets and KPIs, evaluation of institutional arrangements, operational frameworks, and governance mechanisms, identification of key challenges, risks, and gaps in implementation and provision of actionable recommendations to strengthen ongoing and future phases of the initiative.

The consultant shall be responsible for undertaking the following tasks: Assess compliance of directives and national policy decisions issued under the initiative, assess if the goals/ targets envisaged are suitable, and achievable given the policy, regulatory, institutional and technological infrastructure currently available, evaluate the implementation strategy including phasing, coordination mechanisms, and resource allocation, assess the effectiveness of the implementation strategies adopted to achieve the targets and give recommendations to improve the implementation strategies.

Further top review progress towards quantitative goals: number of users, number of merchants, transaction volume, geographic coverage etc, analyze data trends in Raast and QR-code payments, digital wallet adoption, and public-sector digital transactions.

The consultancy firm would be required to evaluate the performance and effectiveness of the three oversight Committees: (a) Digital Payments Adoption and Innovation (b) Digital Public Infrastructure (c) government Payments (d) assess coordination between all the public and private institutions involved in the initiative (e) review internal and external monitoring systems.

Further it would be required to frame recommendation for ensuring effective and timely implementation of Cashless initiatives. Recommendations on any new/suggested initiatives on the overall agenda of Cashless Pakistan and evolution of Cashless Pakistan agenda.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025