Business

Value of transactions down 12% in Jan-Mar

Volume, however, was up 4%; major share in increase came from Interbank Funds Transfer

Our Correspondent June 04, 2016

Volume, however, was up 4%; major share in increase came from Interbank Funds Transfer. PHOTO: REUTERS

KARACHI: The Pakistan Real-time Interbank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) settled as many as 235,274 transactions valuing Rs56.4 trillion in Jan-Mar, up 4% from the preceding quarter in volume terms, the central bank said on Saturday.

However, PRISM transactions showed a decrease of 12% in value terms over the Oct-Dec quarter, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said.

The major share in the increase during the three-month period was contributed by Interbank Funds Transfer, which rose 3%. The decline in the value of PRISM transactions was on the back of securities settlement that decreased 18% on a quarter-on-quarter basis.

In the third quarter of 2015-16, the volume and value of internet banking transactions showed an increase of 7% and 9%, respectively. The volume and value of point-of-sale (POS) transactions increased 5% and 6%, respectively, over the preceding quarter.

The volume of mobile banking transactions increased 12% while its value rose 11% over Oct-Dec. Automated Teller Machine (ATM) transactions showed an increase of 2% in volume and 7% in value on a quarterly basis.

The volume of Real Time Online Banking (RTOB) transactions rose 6.7% to 35 million whereas the value decreased 5% to Rs7.8 trillion because of a decline in the real-time account-to-account funds transfer over the quarter. Non-financial transactions increased 8% in Jan-Mar over the preceding quarter.

The network of ATMs continued to grow during the third quarter of the current fiscal year. It reached 11,100 from 10,736, the SBP said. Furthermore, the network added 2,429 POS machines, which shows growth of 5% over the second quarter of 2015-16.

The number of cards issued by banks also increased 3% in Jan-Mar. There were a total of 33.7 million cards by the end of the quarter under review. Similarly, the number of registered users of internet, mobile and call centre banking reached 22.9 million at the end of March, showing growth of 4% over the preceding quarter.

Further breakdown of the payments system numbers was not available because of a glitch in the SBP website on Saturday.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2016.

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