Targeted mechanisms urged to boost Raast adoption

State Bank of Pakistan Deputy Governor Saleem Ullah emphasised the need to address real market demands through targeted mechanisms that support merchants. He was speaking at the launch of the report Merchant Payments on Raast: Responsibly Pricing for Impact and Inclusion. The report, released under the United Nations-backed Better Than Cash Alliance, focuses on building an ecosystem that encourages a shift from cash to Raast. However, the question remains: who will bear the cost of incentives and pricing? The business case for moving away from cash to Raast peer-to-merchant (P2M) payments is strong. More than 85pc of all transactions, worth trillions of rupees annually, still occur in cash. This reliance on physical currency imposes an estimated economic burden of Rs3-4 trillion ($10-14bn) each year, or about 4-5pc of GDP.