Slowdown in the overall economic activity in the country has also disturbed the e-banking transactions, which posted a decline of four percent in term of volume during the first quarter of current fiscal year. According to the State Bank of Pakistan's Payment System Review (PSR), during the first quarter (July-September) of FY12, e-banking transactions settled at levels slightly lower than those in the previous quarter mainly as a reflection of overall economic activity in the country.
"The volume and value of overall e-banking transactions in the country during the quarter under review was recorded at 63.7 million and Rs 6.15 trillion, respectively showing a decrease of 3.9 percent in the volume and 1.34 percent in value as compared to the previous quarter," the report said.
Similarly, ATM transactions showed 5.46 percent decrease in number of transactions and 0.04 percent decrease in value which resulted in an average value of Rs 9,222 per ATM transaction. At this level, the share of ATM transactions in total e-banking transactions in terms of volume and value worked out to 58.2 percent and 5.6 percent, respectively.
However, the report revealed that payment systems infrastructure in Pakistan continued its growth momentum during the 1st Quarter of FY12 as 118 more ATMs were added to the market bringing the total number of ATMs in the country to 5,318 while 469 more bank branches were upgraded/added to real-time Online Branches (RTOBs).
A total of 7,885 bank branches are now offering RTOB out of total 9,651 bank branches in the country. The number of plastic cards also increased by 3.65 percent compared to the numbers recorded in the previous quarter. In total, there were 14.5 million plastic cards in circulation by the end of the quarter under review, it added.
The number of Real Time Online Branches (RTOB) transactions also decreased by 4.5 percent, while the value of transactions decreased by 1.7 percent compared to the previous quarter. These transactions contributed almost 31 percent of e-banking transactions and 93 percent in terms of value, respectively.
The volume of large value payments through PRISM also showed a declining trend ie 4.1 percent. However, value of transactions increased slightly by 2.7 percent compared to the previous quarter. The major portion of PRISM transactions in terms of value was in respect of settlements against securities which accounted for 56 percent of the total transactions followed by Interbank Funds Transfers at 30 percent and settlement of retail cheques through multilateral clearing at 14 percent, the report said.
The number of ATM only cards has declined due to the fact that banks are converting their ATM cards into debit cards which can also be used on POS terminals. Strict Credit Card issuance policies of banks coupled with their strategic decisions continued investments in POS terminals resulted in negative impact on the number of Credit Cards and POS terminals, the report revealed.