The State Bank’s recent Annual Payment Systems Review (PSR) revealed that digital financial transactions have experienced a remarkable growth in the country within the last Fiscal Year. This shows that even though it is marred by countless inefficiencies, a basic structure for digital banking is finally taking off in Pakistan. As long as local banks remain dedicated towards improving the standard of services offered to the public, digital banking will continue to flourish and bring us towards the modern era that connects one country to the other rather seamlessly.
According to the Real-time Inter-Bank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM), digital transactions across the nation rose in volume by as much as 60 percent and 12.8 percent in value. This increase was primarily attributed towards increased use of mobile banking, online banking, e-commerce, use of ATM machines and direct card-accepting point of sale machines at shops and vendors. It is evident that the masses have an enhanced and clearer understanding of the digital banking sector and have understood the kind of convenience that it promises to its customers.
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As more people avail these services, there is a greater burden on the biggest banks in Pakistan to reform their systems to become completely flawless. Suspension of online banking services, delays in transactions, lax customer services, unreliability and faulty procedures are rather common in banks that operate on a national and international scale. This effectively negates the benefit of convenience that digital banking promises and prevents it from becoming a substitute for conventional banking. We are living in a fast-paced world that has become one with technology and such frequent outages only puts us on a back foot. A long-term plan must be devised to transform and use the existing infrastructure to our advantage.
