The Presidents/Chief Executive Officers

All Regulated Entities (Banks/MFBs/PSO/PSPs & EMIs)

Improving Payment Card Acceptance Infrastructure in Pakistan

Please refer to PSD Circular No. 01 of 2020 on “Improving Payment Card Acceptance Infrastructure in Pakistan”. In order to facilitate the acceptance of card-based payments, it has been decided that:

Interchange Reimbursement Fee (IRF) for cards issued in Pakistan used on domestic POS terminals shall be as follows:

1. for debit and prepaid cards – not exceeding 0.2%
2. for credit cards – not exceeding 0.7%

Lower range of Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) i.e. 1.5% is abolished in terms of the clause 2(i) of PSD Circular No. 01 of 2020.

All e-commerce/online payment acquirers operating in Pakistan shall enable acceptance of Domestic Payment Scheme (DPS) card for card-not-present (CNP) transactions on their respective payment gateways by June 30, 2023.

All other instructions on the subject shall remain same