KARACHI: Despite the increasing trend of the use of electronic payment systems and its rising awareness among general public in Pakistan, transactions in cash is still dominating in the country, said the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). During 2017-18, the overall payment infrastructure of the country was stable resulting in the smooth and successful processing of payment transactions in various payment streams. According to the Payment Systems Review for Fiscal year 2017-18 issued by SBP on Wednesday, during the year FY18, country’s core payment systems infrastructure remained operationally resilient. All the channels of payment systems showed significant growth compared to the previous year. The large-value payment system i.e. Pakistan Real Time Inter-bank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) processed 1.7 million transactions amounting Rs.361.0 trillion. These transactions showed significant growth of 54.5% and 29.2% in both volume and value of transactions compared to previous year i.e. FY17. In these transactions, the transactions with regards to the 3 rd Party customers’ transfers has the highest share of 1.3 million transactions (i.e. 79% of the overall recorded transactions) whereas Government securities settlement transactions have the highest share of Rs.256 trillion in value of transactions (i.e. 71% of the overall transactions). The e-Banking channels i.e. real time online branches (RTOB), ATMs, e-Commerce, Internet, Mobile Phone and Call Centers/ IVR Banking collectively processed 756.4 million transactions of value Rs.47.4 trillion. These transactions showed significant growth of 20.9% and 27.8% in both volume and value of transactions compared to previous year i.e. FY17. During FY18, 756.4 million transactions of value Rs.47.4 trillion were processed through retail-Banking channels. These transactions showed YoY growth of 20.9 % and 27.8% in volume and value of transactions respectively compared to previous year. In total e-Banking transactions, RTOBs transactions’ accounted for the largest share of 84.1% in value of transactions with volume share of 21.9% whereas ATMs has the largest share of 62.2% in volume of transactions with a value share of 11.7%. POS transactions contributed 8.4% in volume with value share 0.6%, Internet Banking accounted for a share 4.1% and 2.7% in volume and value of transactions respectively. The residuals share of e-Banking transactions is contributed by Mobile Phone Banking, Call Centers/ IVR Banking and e-Commerce transactions. As on end June 2018, the number of ATMs was 14,019. During the year FY18, ATMs processed 470.6 million transactions amounting to Rs. 5.5 trillion. These transactions showed a YoY growth of 18.3% by volume and 21.6% by value respectively. As the number of ATMs in the country are growing, the size of ATMs transactions as well as number of transaction per ATM are on rising trend. During the year under review, the average size of an ATM transaction was approximately Rs. 11,793 per transaction and 33,567 transactions were processed per ATM. Mobile Phone/ App based Banking is being offered by 21 Banks/ MFBs to 3.4 million registered users as of end of June, 2018. This Channel processed 21.8 million transactions worth Rs. 409.8 Billion during FY18 showed a significant YoY growth of 195.6 % and 189.8% in volume and value of transactions respectively. Intra-bank and Inter-bank fund transfer were the main contributors in total Mobile Phone Banking transactions. Intra-bank fund transfers contributed 5.8 (26.6%) million transactions by volume and Rs. 186.2 (45.4%) billion by value. Interbank fund transfers contributed 5.0 (22.9%) million transactions by volume and Rs. 196.4 (47.9%) billion by value. Utility Bills Payments has the share of 10.1 (46.3%) million by volume and Rs.10.5 billion (2.6%) by value within overall Mobile Banking volume and value transactions respectively and insignificant residual share is contributed by miscellaneous payment using mobile phone app. The channel has growing trend of transactions and during the year FY18 it showed a significant growth compared to the previous year. Published in Daily Times, August 9th 2018.