Prime Minister Imran Khan launched a new service called Raast Digital. Coming to us with the collaboration of State Bank of Pakistan, Imran Khan launched the new service in Islamabad. The event went live on Facebook as well on State Bank of Pakistan’s official page.
Raast is Pakistan’s instant payment system that will feature collaboration of government entities, banks, microfinance banks as well as fintechs that offer payment services to the general public. Here is what we know about this new service and how it can be a help you in the grand scheme of things.
What is Raast by State Bank of Pakistan
Raast is uniquely Pakistani, It is an instant payment system that will directly address the challenges that the users face with payment systems. With this new system, people will be able to instantly handle their domestic monetary issues such as P2P account transfer, salaries, wages, pensions, merchant payments and a lot more.
This is one step closer to becoming a digitalized country and further improve the financial mechanism of the country. Raast is promised to be secure, swift and economical. This is supposed to be the cheapest online and digital payment platform, so common men and women are looking forward to using it.
It is aimed to help out small business, add more inclusivity, promote new business million, es and make online payment much easier. Some of the key feature of Raast include:
- 8 million payment cards
- More than 8.9 million mobile banking users that it will cater to
- Has over 15,770 ATMs
- 50 PRISM Participants
With Raast, users will have low to almost no transaction costs, instant payments as well as the customer centric services. This digital banking form will reduce cash form banking and offer internet banking services to wider audience in Pakistan.
Sima Kamil, the State Bank of Pakistan Deputy Governor stated, “In the next phase, that will take a number of months the payment system would digitize the payments made to government employees in wages and pension, this would be fast, free and safe.”
We can hope that this is the new and better step towards Nayya Pakistan that we were so gloriously promised.