P@SHA Flags Gaps in Raast, Urges Digital Merchant Incentives

The Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) has urged the government to launch a National Digital Merchant Incentive Program to accelerate Raast adoption, warning that despite strong user growth, Pakistan’s instant payment system is still struggling to gain traction among merchants.

In its fintech policy paper, P@SHA noted that Raast has processed over 260 million transactions worth more than Rs. 9.5 trillion and now serves above 42 million registered users. However, merchant usage remains limited, with fewer than 850,000 active merchant endpoints and annual Raast-based merchant payments staying below Rs. 200 billion, highlighting a major gap in person-to-merchant transactions.

The association pointed to Pakistan’s heavy reliance on cash, weak merchant onboarding, poor implementation of merchant-lite accounts, lack of QR code integration in banking apps, and transaction fees close to one percent as major obstacles. Hidden charges and limited fee transparency, P@SHA said, have further reduced trust among small businesses.

According to the paper, banks have largely deprioritized Raast merchant payments in favor of government securities and card-based fee models. Meanwhile, telco-led wallets such as JazzCash and Easypaisa have dominated QR-based merchant payments. The absence of a unified national QR standard across banking apps has also restricted Raast’s retail footprint.

P@SHA proposed capping merchant transaction fees at 0.2–0.3%, introducing a tiered Merchant Discount Rate, mandatory QR integration across all bank apps, and setting up a Merchant Payments Enforcement Unit at the State Bank. It also recommended incentives such as cashbacks, tax credits, fee waivers, digital merchant tax rebates, and free QR kits, stressing that Raast should be treated as a national digital utility.