The government has updated the Gates Foundation on the pace of Pakistan’s digital transformation agenda, pointing to a jump in active merchants using digital payments from half a million to just over two million, a figure that has already crossed the June 2026 target of two million merchants.
A senior delegation from the Gates Foundation, including Dr Anita Zaidi, President of the Gender Equality Division, and Dr Kalpana Kochhar, Interim President of the Global Policy and Advocacy Division, along with other officials, met with Bilal Azhar Kayani, Minister of State for Finance and Revenue and Railways, to discuss progress under the Cashless Pakistan initiative. According to a press release issued after the meeting, the initiative was launched under the direct supervision of the Prime Minister, and the Minister used the occasion to walk the delegation through the scale up in merchant adoption of Raast QR, a growth that officials attributed in part to a government subsidy worth Rs3.5 billion aimed at encouraging shopkeepers and small businesses to shift toward digital transactions. The briefing also touched on rising volumes of digital transactions overall, an expanding base of digital banking users, and steady gains in financial inclusion, with particular attention paid to a narrowing gap between men and women in access to formal financial services. The Minister reaffirmed the government’s intention to increase transparency and efficiency across public sector payments, and the Gates Foundation delegation responded by endorsing the progress made so far, confirming that its support would continue through Karandaaz, the organization it has long used as a vehicle for financial inclusion work in Pakistan.
Beyond the specific gains made under Cashless Pakistan, the Minister used the meeting to outline a wider economic reform agenda that the government is pursuing, framing the documentation and formalization of the economy as a necessary step toward improving fiscal sustainability over the medium term. Among the measures highlighted was the newly introduced Asaan Tax Scheme, a program designed specifically for small traders that relies on incentives to bring merchants into the formal tax net through voluntary registration rather than through penalties or enforcement action. The Minister indicated that the government has set targets for the current fiscal year that go beyond simply maintaining current momentum, including plans for deeper merchant onboarding across the country, further digitization of government to citizen and government to business payments, and continued improvements to the end user experience for people making digital transactions through Raast and related platforms.
The meeting closed with the Minister welcoming the Gates Foundation’s continued involvement in Pakistan’s digital finance sector, including its ongoing backing through Karandaaz, and he responded positively to the idea of broadening the relationship through a wider strategic partnership framework covering future development work. The exchange comes as Pakistan continues to position digital payments infrastructure as a central plank of its broader economic reform push, with officials framing merchant digitization, tax formalization and financial inclusion as connected goals rather than separate initiatives. For the Gates Foundation, the meeting represents a continuation of an existing relationship with Pakistan’s financial inclusion efforts, one that has previously extended into public health programs as well, and the renewed endorsement suggests the organization views the current phase of the Cashless Pakistan drive as consistent with the outcomes it has supported in the past through its regional partnerships.
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