Compared to October-December 2021, the value of e-commerce transactions by credit and debit cards showed an improvement by 28% for the same period of 2022. However, the number of transactions decreased by almost 40%, in comparison. The details were published in the State Bank of Pakistan's Quarterly Payments Systems Review for the Quarter ended December 2022.
In comparison to the previous quarter (July to September 2022), the e-commerce transactions by credit and debit cards showed a decline of 8.4% (5.2 million transactions), but the value of the transactions improved by 2.2% to Rs. 34.2 billion over the last 3 months. The quarter-to-quarter transactions value showed growth primarily due to e-commerce payments made through foreign cards almost doubling from Rs. 5.1 billion in Q2FY2021 to Rs. 10.1 billion in the latest reported period. Meanwhile, e-commerce payments using domestic cards stood at Rs. 24.1 billion, a 11.6% increase from the same period last year. Online merchants accepting online card payments through local banks (or fintechs) grew by 50% to 5,954 merchants compared to 3,968 last year.
It is important to mention that the e-commerce transactions reported by SBP only include card payments whereas many e-commerce digital transactions are conducted through mobile banking, online banking and via digital wallets. The e-commerce related transactions are not yet disaggregated from payments via these channels in the central bank's reports.
Although online consumer and merchant behavior is gradually shifting towards digital payments, various industry sources estimated that 80-90% of e-commerce transactions still take place through cash, primarily cash-on-delivery through logistics service providers.
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