Prime Minister Imran Khan will launch Pakistan’s first instant payment system ‘Raast’ developed by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday.
In a tweet, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib said the programme aims at facilitating digital payments amongst people.
He said under the programme, users will be able to send and receive money in their accounts through a mobile application.
وزیراعظم عمران خان آج سٹیٹ بینک کی جانب سے تیار کیے گئے پاکستان کے پہلے instant payment سسٹم "راست"کا اجراء کریں گے۔
اس پروگرام کا مقصد لوگوں کے درمیان ڈیجٹل ادائیگیوں کو آسان بنانا ہے۔
راست کے تحت صارفین موبائل ایپلیکیشن کے ذریعے اپنے اکاؤنٹس میں رقوم بھیج اور وصول کر سکیں گے۔ pic.twitter.com/IMfw9JIj7E— Farrukh Habib (@FarrukhHabibISF) February 15, 2022
Earlier, the premier had said that the cash economy was the biggest hurdle in tapping the true potential of the 220 million population of Pakistan.
He had said that the cash economy badly affected tax collection, which was evident with the fact that only two million out of 220 million people were tax filers, while 30,000 taxpayers made 70% of the total tax collection in the country. He had said digital Pakistan was a step forward from a cash economy towards the point, where it could take maximum benefit of our 220 million population.
Read more: SBP introduces Raast for instant and free P2P payments
The PM had also congratulated the SBP for working on this initiative of ‘Raast’ and bank efforts for engaging overseas Pakistanis in convincing them to send remittances through formal channels. Foreign remittances had significantly improved as a result of these efforts. Pakistan’s current account deficit had become surplus, which had reduced pressure on the rupee, he had said.
