SBP Asked to Prepare Raast QR Merchant Discount Rate Scheme as Digital Payments Surge
November 14, 2026
The Finance Division has directed the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to prepare a working paper for approval of a Raast QR Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) scheme, to sustain the rapid expansion of digital payments in Pakistan. The direction was issued by Minister of State for Railways and Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani while chairing a high-level follow-up meeting on the Cashless Pakistan initiative at the Finance Division, following the Prime Minister’s review of the programme.
Kayani will also meet bank presidents and chief executives in Karachi to discuss the initiative. The direction follows instructions given by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the previous Cashless Pakistan meeting.
What is Raast QR?
Raast is Pakistan’s instant payment system, run by the State Bank of Pakistan. It moves money between bank accounts in seconds, at any time of day, using a mobile phone number, an account number, or a QR code instead of cash or a card.
Raast QR is the merchant side of that system. A shopkeeper displays a printed QR code at the counter; a customer scans it with a banking app and pays straight from their account. There is no card machine to buy, no cash to count, and no need for the customer and the shopkeeper to use the same bank. For a small business, it is the cheapest way to start accepting digital payments — a piece of paper on the counter rather than a terminal to install and maintain.
What is a Merchant Discount Rate?
Every time a customer pays digitally, somebody has to pay for the plumbing. The Merchant Discount Rate is the fee a merchant pays on each digital transaction, usually a small percentage of the amount, shared between the bank that signed up the merchant, the customer’s bank, and the payment system itself. It covers the cost of running the network, settling the payment, and handling problems when they arise.
The rate matters because it decides whether digital payments are worth it for a small shop. If the fee is too high, a shopkeeper earning thin margins will simply ask customers to pay cash. If the fee is zero, merchants are happy — but the banks that sign merchants up and run the systems earn nothing, and have less reason to invest in bringing more shops on board. Getting the rate right means finding a level where merchants still want to accept digital payments and banks still want to provide them.
A working paper for approval means the Finance Division wants the SBP to set out a formal proposal: what the rate should be, who bears it, and how the scheme would be funded and run. It is a step towards a decision, not the decision itself — no rate has been announced, and the scheme has not yet been approved.
The numbers behind the push
The case for acting now is in the growth figures discussed at the meeting. Active merchants accepting digital payments have risen from 500,000 to 2.03 million — more than a fourfold increase — and overall digital-payment volumes have doubled over the past year. Digital payments are no longer a niche for a small number of large retailers; they have reached millions of small businesses.
From 16 November 2026, all payments for Asaan Assignment Accounts will be processed through the Raast digital system — another category of payments moving off cash and on to the country’s instant-payment rails.
Why small merchants are the key
Large retailers and online businesses adopted digital payments years ago. The hard part of going cashless is the millions of small shops, street vendors, and service providers that make up most of Pakistan’s retail economy, for whom the decision is practical: does accepting a QR payment cost more than handling cash, and does it bring in more customers?
Cash has hidden costs of its own — the time spent counting it, the risk of theft or counterfeit notes, and the difficulty of keeping records — but those costs are familiar and do not arrive as a visible fee on every sale. A discount rate set too high makes the comparison easy and the merchant sticks with cash; a scheme that keeps the cost low can tip the balance, especially for the smallest businesses.
That is why the question is being handled system-wide: only a consistent scheme gives every shopkeeper the same terms.
How it fits the Cashless Pakistan push
Cashless Pakistan is the government’s programme to shift everyday payments from cash to digital channels, driven from the Prime Minister’s office, with the Finance Division coordinating and the SBP building the infrastructure. The Raast system is its backbone and the merchant network its front line. The SBP has also been tightening the rules around cash itself — it recently raised the cash reporting threshold to Rs3 million — as part of the same shift away from cash.
The meeting chaired by Kayani was a follow-up, suggesting the programme is now working through practical blockers rather than announcing new ambitions — the MDR scheme is one of them, and the question is whether pricing will let growth continue. Kayani’s planned meeting with bank presidents and chief executives in Karachi points the same way: the government wants the banks, which sign up merchants and run the systems, aligned behind the plan.
What this means
For small merchants, a Raast QR MDR scheme could make accepting digital payments cheaper and more predictable — but nothing has been decided yet. For customers, the trend is towards more places to pay by scanning a code instead of carrying cash. For banks, the coming discussion in Karachi will matter: the scheme will shape what they earn from merchant payments and how much they invest in new merchants. And for Cashless Pakistan, the merchant numbers — 2.03 million active merchants, volumes doubled in a year — show the momentum is real; the MDR scheme is about making sure pricing does not slow it down.