Govt payments: 1LINK proposes mandatory PayPak cards

ISLAMABAD: In a major push to reduce Pakistan’s dependence on international card schemes such as Visa and Mastercard, 1LINK has proposed making PayPak cards mandatory for government employees’ salary accounts, subsidy programmes and public sector payments, while recommending tax incentives and cashback offers to accelerate adoption of the country’s domestic payment scheme.

The proposals, shared by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), a copy of which is available with Business Recorder include mandatory issuance of PayPak cards for government employees’ salary accounts as well as beneficiaries of government subsidies, social safety-net programmes and mass-transit payment systems.

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To encourage wider usage, 1LINK has also suggested tax relief and incentives on Point-of-Sale (PoS) and e-commerce transactions conducted through PayPak cards. It further recommended that all public-facing government service centres, including NADRA, Excise and Passport Offices, install PoS machines capable of accepting PayPak cards.

The company has additionally proposed discounts, cash back and loyalty rewards for PayPak transactions, particularly for utility bill payments, fuel purchases, public transport and other government payments.

The proposals come as the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) pursues a strategy to strengthen Pakistan’s domestic payment infrastructure and increase the share of transactions routed through national payment rails, particularly Raast and PayPak, instead of international networks.

According to the SBP, it has introduced policy, regulatory and market development initiatives to strengthen the PayPak ecosystem, including co-badged PayPak cards that can be used for both domestic and international transactions, expanding PayPak acceptance for e-commerce, promotional incentives and public awareness campaigns.

The central bank said these measures have improved PayPak’s functionality, merchant acceptance and transaction volumes, while also accelerating the rollout of Raast Person-to-Merchant (P2M) payments.

The SBP informed the committee that the government had allocated Rs3.5 billion for a Raast QR-code subsidy programme in FY2025-26, helping daily P2M transactions surge from around 60,000 in June 2025 to approximately 1.1 million by June 2026. The central bank said it would continue promoting merchant onboarding and QR-based digital payments to further expand Pakistan’s digital payments ecosystem.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026