Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has issued definitive instructions to federal financial bodies, commercial banks, and state institutions to rapidly accelerate the national transition toward a cashless economy. Presiding over a high-level strategic review session in Islamabad, the premier emphasized that migrating away from a cash-heavy system is a critical driver for achieving sustainable economic expansion, maximizing documentation, and introducing absolute transparency into fiscal operations. The prime minister noted that minimizing the circulation of physical currency within the domestic marketplace remains central to the broader administrative agenda of modernizing the state financial grid and mitigating hidden economic parallel streams.
During the extensive performance evaluation, the premier commended his economic team and relevant technology institutions for securing unprecedented milestones in digital asset adoption over the preceding twelve months. Official structural assessments presented during the session revealed that the total volume of active commercial merchants utilizing quick response code systems for digital transactions witnessed an extraordinary three hundred percent increase between June 2025 and June 2026. This exponential expansion has successfully elevated the total number of digitally integrated retail merchants to over two million nationwide, demonstrating a significant organic shift in consumer behavior and retail level acceptance of electronic payment methods.
In tandem with commercial retail adoption, the presentation highlighted a massive wave of public onboarding within the digital banking infrastructure. The total number of mobile banking application users across the country surged from ninety-five million to a historic one hundred and thirty-seven million within the span of a single fiscal year. The prime minister characterized this substantial increase as a major institutional breakthrough, noting that it reflects a deep, structural shift in public trust toward automated financial systems. State reports confirmed that between July 2025 and June 2026, the domestic banking architecture successfully processed a staggering eleven point nine billion individual digital transactions, signaling that electronic transaction channels have firmly established themselves within the mainstream economic fabric.
Building upon these successful operational metrics, the prime minister directed the central bank and private commercial entities to execute more proactive, targeted awareness campaigns to convince remaining traditional merchants to transition to digital payment solutions. He also issued an explicit policy directive requiring the total digitization of all incoming foreign worker remittances sent by overseas citizens. While acknowledging that ninety-two percent of these vital capital inflows are currently managed through secure electronic channels, the premier stressed that achieving a absolute one hundred percent digital remittance network is essential to safeguard foreign inflows, streamline documentation, and entirely eliminate informal parallel transfer channels.
The strategic meeting also evaluated the massive progress achieved in automating state-managed social welfare distribution and national registration databases. The premier praised the complete electronic migration of the Benazir Income Support Programme, where financial allocations are now channeled directly into digital wallets for all ten million registered beneficiaries, ensuring that welfare funds reach vulnerable citizens rapidly and without middleman leakages. Similarly, the National Database and Registration Authority reported that ninety-nine percent of its commercial transactions have been successfully digitized, forcing internal cash transactions to plunge dramatically from seventy-one percent down to a mere one percent. The session concluded with the prime minister reinforcing that the Pakistan Banks Association and individual financial institutions must remain strictly aligned with state-assigned targets, particularly regarding the utilization of the Raast instant payment system, to ensure the country establishes an entirely transparent, globally competitive, and completely cashless financial ecosystem.
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