KARACHI – E-banking transactions amounted to Rs 5.5 trillion during the second quarter of 2010, showing an increase of 17.47 percent. The volume and value of overall e-banking transactions in the country during the quarter under review reached 56.42 million and Rs 5.5 trillion respectively showing an increase of 7.30 percent in volume and 17.47 percent in value compared to previous quarter.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has disclosed this in its second quarterly report on payments report for October-December 2010 period. ATMs, being the largest channel for e-banking transactions, showed 5.6 percent increase in number of transactions and 9.5 percent increase in value which resulted in an average value of Rs 8,804 per ATM transaction.
It said a significant increase was also recorded in transactions related to real-time online branches (RTOB) as the number of such transactions grew by 10.59 percent and value of transactions increased by 17.97 percent. The report said this trend was also witnessed in the large value payments settled through Pakistan Real-time Interbank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM), which increased by 12.73 percent in volume and 13.49 percent in value of transactions compared to the previous quarter.
The major portion of PRISM transactions, in terms of value was settlements against securities, which accounted for 46 percent of the total transactions followed by Interbank Funds Transfers (38 percent) and settlement of retail cheques multilateral clearing (16 percent). According to the central bank report, the volume and value of paper based retail payments during the quarter under review were 88.46 million and Rs 39.07 trillion respectively, which increased by 6.63 percent in volume of transactions and 9.75 percent in value of transactions compared to the previous quarter.
The contribution of paper based payments in total retail payment transactions was 61.06 percent in terms of volume and 87.73 percent in terms of value while the rest of the transactions originated from e-banking, it added. It may be mentioned here that safe, efficient and reliable payment systems are vital part and backbone of financial infrastructure of a country which provide the essential base for financial stability.
The primary goal of a payment system is to enable fast and risk-free circulation of money in the economy, an essential pre-requisite for satisfying timely payment obligations and improve liquidity in the financial markets. The scope of payment systems infrastructure continued to show a growing trend during the second quarter (October-December) of the current 2010-2011 fiscal year (FY11) as a total of 172 automated teller machines (ATMs) were added to the e-banking infrastructure bringing the total number of ATMs to a record level of 4,734 in the country.
According to State Bank’s Second Quarterly Report on Payments Systems released today, 309 more bank branches have been upgraded to Real Time Online Branches (RTOBs). Now 7,036 bank branches are offering real-time online banking out of total 9,483 bank branches existing in Pakistan, the report added.
