The Senate Standing Committee on Finance has urged a significant shift in Pakistan’s payment ecosystem, recommending that banks actively promote PayPak, the country’s indigenous payment card network, over global players like Visa and MasterCard. This call came during a session chaired by Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, where key financial issues were brought under scrutiny.
During the meeting, officials from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) provided an overview of the current card landscape in the country. As of March 2025, Pakistan has approximately 53 million cardholders. Of these, around 12.5 million use Visa cards, while only 10 million have adopted PayPak, highlighting a substantial gap in consumer preference for international brands over the local alternative.
Senator Mandviwalla emphasized that despite the presence of a robust domestic card scheme, most consumers across Pakistan continue to rely on Visa and MasterCard for their transactions. He pointed out that this dependence not only enables foreign payment networks to extract fees from local transactions but also contributes to profits for banks that issue these cards. “Banks earn profits from these cards. We should require banks to encourage customers to adopt PayPak,” the senator remarked, underlining the need to bolster the local payments infrastructure.
The committee took note of the annual fees that Pakistani customers pay on Visa and MasterCard transactions, which are charged in U.S. dollars. This concern triggered a broader discussion on why banks have predominantly pushed international card products over PayPak. Several committee members questioned whether banks were intentionally steering customers away from local options, thereby undermining efforts to strengthen Pakistan’s domestic financial systems.
One member of the committee observed that banks appear to be actively discouraging customers from opting for PayPak cards. This stance, the committee argued, runs counter to the country’s economic interests, especially when considering the outflow of foreign exchange in the form of fees paid to international card networks.
To address these concerns, committee members proposed that banks give account holders a clear choice to select local cards like PayPak. This approach, they suggested, would not only support the development of Pakistan’s financial technology sector but also reduce dependency on foreign payment systems, ultimately keeping more money within the national economy.
The discussion reflects growing sentiment within Pakistan’s policymaking circles to prioritize domestic financial tools. As global economic dynamics continue to shift and countries reassess their reliance on international financial infrastructure, the push to expand PayPak’s footprint stands as a strategic move to safeguard national economic interests.
The recommendations from the Senate committee are expected to put pressure on banks to reconsider their card issuance strategies. If adopted, this could lead to a substantial increase in the adoption of PayPak, paving the way for a more self-reliant payments landscape in Pakistan.
