Business Desk 
Jul 27, 2025
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has officially announced a consolidated framework for customer onboarding, alongside advising banks and regulated entities (REs) to provide “Digital Payment Acceptance” solutions to their customers.
SBP revealed that banks will now provide digital payment solutions to their customers engaged in in-store and/or online business/trade activities.
New customer onboarding framework aims to simplify and standardise the account opening process and rationalise the documentary requirements.
SBP has direct REs to ensure that the turnaround time for new account opening does not exceed two days for the general public. Moreover, customers should also be able to track the status of their account opening applications, making the process transparent and customer-friendly.
With these moves, SBP aims to improve financial inclusion and customer convenience.
In addition, to facilitate the merchants' acceptance of payments digitally, SBP has directed its REs to equip all merchants with at least one of the digital payment acceptance solutions, such as Raast QR code, Point of Sale (POS), e-commerce/Raast checkout, to facilitate customers’ digital payments for in-store and/or online purchases.
Notably, these initiatives will enhance the regulatory environment for mainstreaming the excluded individuals and businesses into the banking system and digitising the existing large-scale cash-based persons-to-merchants payments.
On the other hand, the framework also offers strong regulatory safeguards aligned with international best practices.
