SBP Extends RAAST Payment System to Provincial Accountant Generals

The department of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) is all set to onboard the payment system of provincial chapters of Accountant Generals under the RAAST payment system in Punjab, Baluchistan, and Gilgit-Baltistan, according to the report “Annual Payment Review released by the central bank. The process of onboarding Accountant General Gilgit-Baltistan, Accountant General Punjab, and Accountant General Baluchistan on RAAST has been completed and the payment processing is expected to start in the near future, the report said. Progress has been made since the successful deployment of the RAAST payment system at Accountant General Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) at a federal level. In the initial stages of RAAST Bulk Payments, AGPR has been deployed on RAAST to process their payrolls, vendor payments, General Provident funds, and advances-related payments. AGPR processed a total of 850,000 transactions amounting to Rs. 100.0 billion (the biggest bulk payment processor, accounting for more than 90 percent of total AGPR payments during FY24. Further, the Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) has also been on-boarded for processing coupon payments and encashment services through RAAST. During the same period, 72,000 transactions amounting to Rs. 26.0 billion were processed by CDNS, accounting for approximately 10 percent of total payments. RAAST Deployment for BISP & FBR State Bank of Pakistan, in its drive to digitalize the economy, has been onboarding various private and public sector entities on the RAAST platform. The payment disbursements under the Benazir Income Support Program to be processed via RAAST are also under consideration. Projects of onboarding FBR for duty drawback and Controller Naval Accounts for salary and pension disbursements are also in the pipeline. According to the SBP’s report, a total of 496.1 million transactions were processed through RAAST amounting to Rs. 11,558.3 billion. Last year in FY23, the number of transactions stood at 147.2 million with the value of Rs. 3,074.4 billion during the fiscal year FY24. RAAST, an instant payment system based on ISO-20022, is paving the way to increase the adoption of digital payments. RAAST person-to-person (P2P) use case offers a free-of-cost facility for fund transfers between individuals. One can transfer funds using their mobile banking app or internet banking portal using IBAN or RAAST ID. SBP has now also launched an interoperable RAAST P2M service to facilitate digital payment acceptance for merchants and businesses. The P2M service will enable payment acceptance by businesses using Quick Response (QR) Codes, RAAST Alias, IBAN, and Request to Pay (RTP). The RAAST P2M service is set to accelerate the pace of digitization of merchant and business transactions in Pakistan.