Raast Payments in Pakistan FY26: What SBP's Annual Data Means for Online Sellers Taking Advance Payment (With a Rs Calculation)

Raast payments in Pakistan: the number that changed most in FY26

Raast payments in Pakistan grew faster than anything else in the State Bank of Pakistan's Annual Payment Systems Review for FY26 (July 2025 to June 2026), published on 6 October 2026. The line that matters most for an online seller is person-to-merchant (P2M) payments: customers paying a business, not a friend. According to SBP's provisional tables, as reported by Pakera, Raast P2M payments rose from 4.9 million in FY25 to 182.5 million in FY26, and their value rose from Rs 14.9 billion to Rs 994.4 billion.

That is about 37 times more payments in one year. For a COD seller this is the most useful signal in the whole report, because it measures exactly the habit you need before a customer will pay you in advance: sending money from a phone to a business they do not know personally.

This post lays out the FY26 numbers next to FY25, adds our own calculations from them, and ends with a Rs formula to decide how much discount, if any, to give a customer who pays by Raast instead of cash on delivery.

The FY26 payment numbers next to FY25

The table uses figures from news reports of SBP's annual review (24 News, Pakistan Observer, TechX) and Pakera's reading of SBP's Raast tables. The last column is our own arithmetic. SBP's Raast figures for FY26 are provisional and may be revised.

Two more points from the review. SBP counted 337,791 POS terminals at 295,367 merchant locations in FY26. And 96% of e-commerce payments made through banking channels were account-based (bank account or wallet), not card. Wallet and account users can overlap, so do not add the two app-user numbers together.

Our reading: what the Raast numbers say about your customers

We divided the value of Raast payments by their number to get the average size of each payment, and compared the last quarter with the full year. These are our own calculations from the SBP figures above.

• The average merchant payment of about Rs 5,450 sits right in the range of many Pakistani online orders. Customers are no longer only using Raast for chai and groceries; amounts like your parcel are normal.
• The habit is real but young. Only about 1 in 15 Raast payments went to a business in FY26. Most people still use Raast to pay people they know. That is the trust gap a COD seller faces: the payment rail exists, the trust in an unknown store does not yet.
• The last quarter alone had about 86.0 million P2M payments, close to half the year. If that pace held, July to September 2026 would be higher again. Check the next SBP quarterly review before assuming it.
• QR merchants more than tripled to about 3.8 million. Many of your customers now pay their local shop by scanning a code, so a Raast ID or QR on your order confirmation will not look strange to them.

How much discount can you give for paying by Raast? A Rs formula

A prepaid order cannot be refused at the door, so it removes the risk of a wasted round trip. That saving is what pays for any discount. A simple way to set the discount:

Break-even discount per prepaid order = your return (RTO) rate x your round-trip shipping cost - the merchant fee your bank charges on the payment.

Example (illustrative numbers, not real store data). Your average order is Rs 3,000. Shipping is Rs 250 forward and Rs 250 back, so a return wastes Rs 500. Your bank charges a 1% merchant fee on Raast payments, about Rs 30 on this order (1% is the example rate Dawn used; ask your own bank). The table shows the break-even discount at three return rates.

Now say you get 300 orders a month and 30 customers (10%) choose Raast, with a 15% RTO rate. A Rs 100 discount costs you about Rs 3,900 (discount plus fee) and saves about Rs 2,250 in avoided returns: a loss of about Rs 1,600. A Rs 50 discount costs about Rs 2,400 and saves Rs 2,250: roughly even. No discount, but faster dispatch for prepaid orders, costs about Rs 900 in fees and saves Rs 2,250.

So with a low return rate, a big prepaid discount loses money. Offer something cheap to you instead: same-day dispatch, a free small gift, or priority on sale items. Give a rupee discount only in cities or on products where your RTO rate is high. The formula assumes a customer who prepays would otherwise have returned as often as your average customer, which is a simplification.

To use the formula you need your real RTO rate by city and product. RabbitROI shows return rates by courier, city and product, so you can see where a Raast discount pays for itself.

What it costs you to accept Raast

SBP rules say customers cannot be charged a fee for Raast payments to a merchant. Banks and payment firms may charge the merchant a reasonable fee, and SBP encouraged them to waive it in the early phase. The government approved a Rs 3.5 billion subsidy for Raast P2M QR payments, paid to banks at 0.5% of each payment or Rs 100, whichever is lower, for September 2025 to June 2026, according to an SBP circular and Business Recorder.

That subsidy window has ended. We could not find a public extension, so ask your bank in writing what merchant fee applies to your account from now on. Dawn's analysis of P2M payments notes that the merchant bears this fee.

What to do this week, before 11.11

1. Get a Raast ID or merchant QR on your business bank account. Most banks let you register a Raast ID on your mobile number. Ask for the merchant fee in writing before you start.
2. Add the Raast option to your order confirmation message, not just the checkout page. When you confirm an order on WhatsApp, offer: pay now by Raast and get your benefit, or keep COD. Never force prepayment.
3. Set your benefit with the formula above. Start with a non-cash benefit like faster dispatch. Use a rupee discount only where your RTO rate is high.
4. Ask the customer to write the order number in the payment note, so you can match each payment to an order in your reconciliation sheet.
5. Check every payment in your bank app before you dispatch. A screenshot is not a payment, and screenshots can be faked, so confirm the money has arrived first.
6. Track two numbers every week: prepaid share (Raast orders divided by all orders) and RTO rate. If prepaid share rises and RTO falls, it is working.

What to watch next

SBP publishes a payment systems review every quarter. The July to September 2026 review will show whether Raast merchant payments kept growing after the subsidy period ended. Watch three lines: Raast P2M payments, QR merchants, and the account-based share of e-commerce payments.

COD will stay the main way Pakistanis pay online stores for a while. But FY26 is the year paying a business by Raast became normal at the size of an online order. Sellers who make it easy and safe now will have cheaper, surer orders as the habit grows.

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