What is Raast?
Raast is the State Bank of Pakistan's free instant payment system. It handles transfers by phone number alias or IBAN and merchant payments by QR code or request to pay. It processed 742.1 million transactions in Q1 2026.
In detail
Raast is the State Bank of Pakistan's free instant payment system. It handles transfers by phone number alias or IBAN and merchant payments by QR code or request to pay. It processed 742.1 million transactions in Q1 2026.
How Raast works
Raast, the State Bank of Pakistan's instant payment system, is the fastest-growing payment rail in the country. In the first quarter of 2026 it processed 742.1 million transactions worth PKR 23.3 trillion. Person-to-person transfers made up 664 million of them, and person-to-merchant payments jumped to 55.9 million from 36.3 million the previous quarter. The SBP counted 49.5 million Raast IDs and 2.5 million QR-enabled merchants at the end of March 2026.
Raast for merchants
For merchants, the key shift is Raast P2M: payments by QR code, by Raast ID or through a request to pay at checkout, settled instantly into the merchant's account. Gateways such as PayFast now offer Raast at checkout next to wallets and cards. PayFast was the first to add Raast P2M at checkout, and a Karachi-based PSP launched a Shopify app for Raast payments in 2026. A Karandaaz study on digitizing e-commerce with Raast notes that card transactions are only about 5% of e-commerce volume.
More detail in our #PayWorldTour guide Payment methods in Pakistan.