Overall e-banking transactions in the country registered an increase of 2.6 per cent to reach 66.96 million during the second quarter (Oct-Dec) of fiscal year 2011-12. The value of e-banking transactions also depicted a growth of 4.85 per cent compared to the preceding quarter ended September, 2011.
According to the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the Payment Systems infrastructure in Pakistan showed an up-ward growth trend during the 2nd Quarter as a total of 91 more ATMs were added bringing the total number of ATMs in the country to 5,409. Altogether, 1,020 more bank branches were upgraded to Real-Time Online Branches (RTOB) mainly due to high investments by a public sector bank. Now 8,905 bank branches are offering RTOB ser-vices out of the total of 9,948 bank branches across country. The number of plastic cards also increased by 4.88 per cent compared to the numbers recorded in the preceding quarter. By the end of quarter under review, there were 15.2 million plastic cards in circulation in the country.
ATM transactions also showed an increase of 3.22 per cent in the number of transactions and 8.33 per cent increase in value resulting in an average value of Rs9,558 per ATM transaction. “The share of ATM transactions in total e-banking transactions in terms of volume and value worked out to 59.8 per cent and 5.9 per cent, respectively,” said the Bank, adding that the number of RTOB transactions also increased by 3.4 per cent whereas, the value of transactions increased by 4.8 per cent compared to the previous quarter, which represented almost 30 per cent volume and 93 per cent value of the overall e-banking transactions, respectively. The State Bank said the volume and value of transactions through POS terminals stood at 4.2 million and Rs19.6 billion, showing 1.4 and 8.6 per cent growth, respectively as compared to the figures reported in the previous quarter.
“The volume of large-value payments through RTGS increased by 2.8 per cent, whereas the value of transactions increased by 21.4 per cent. The major portion of RTGS transactions in terms of value continued to be in respect of settlements against securities followed by Interbank Funds Transfers and settlement of retail cheques through multilateral clearing contributing 61.5, 28.9 and 9.6 per cent, respectively,” it added.
