Staff Reporter
Karachi
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday announced that Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) for Point of Sale (POS) acquiring Pakistan shall be within the range of 1.5%-2.5% for both existing and new merchants. SBP said that the Interchange Reimbursement Fee (IRF) for debit and prepaid cards issued in Pakistan used on domestic POS terminals shall be capped at 0.5 percent.
The central bank said that during the past few years, there has been considerable growth in the digital payment infrastructure of the country, especially in the number of debit cards being issued by the banks to their customers.
Although, the Point of Sale (POS) infrastructure has also grown during the past few years, its growth has largely remained restricted to high value merchants in big cities. Some of the key challenges being faced by the POS acquiring industry in Pakistan include high Interchange Reimbursement Fee (IRF), lower than cost Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) to onboard high value merchants and less interest by banks in offering low cost domestic payment cards to their customers.
State Bank said that the card issuers shall offer SBP approved Domestic Payment Scheme (DPS) Card as the default card at the time of issuance or renewal of debit cards. Accordingly, card requesting customers shall be offered the following options in order of priority.
