Digital Innovation and Settlements Department (DI&SD) was created on June 25, 2021, as a result of restructuring within State Bank of Pakistan under which, a Digital Financial Services Group (DFSG) was created, comprising of the following two departments:

A. Digital Innovation & Settlements Department
B. Payment Systems Policy & Oversight Department

Considering SBP's vision for digitization of banking and payments in Pakistan, the DI&SD strives for undertaking innovative projects in the sphere of digital financial services and innovations including but not limited to: Open Banking, Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC), Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) and other evolving technological advancements. SBP's flagship innovative product, Roshan Digital Account (RDA) is also housed in DI&SD. The department is also responsible to deploy and operate current and future critical payments infrastructures such as RTGS/ATS and Pakistan's Instant Payment System-Raast.

Another key function of DI&SD is to conceptualize and develop innovation challenge fund (s) in collaboration with Multilateral agencies like IFC and World Bank; besides, working with the industry for innovative means for disciplines like e-KYC and cross border remittances in consultation with relevant SBP's departments.

Objectives of DI&SD
The key objectives of the department are as under:

• Innovation - Promote innovation in the country through regulatory & technical sandboxing, enabling policies, and providing state-of-the-art payment platforms.
• Enabling Infrastructure - Development and deployment of payments infrastructure like ATS+ and Raast that will facilitate seamless transformation of the payments landscape in the country.
• Market Development - Digital payments market development and adoption through enabling regulatory environment for provision of value added services and solutions to the masses.
• Digital Access & Usage - Enabling the metamorphosis of the payments and financial landscape of the country from a primitive analog approach to a completely end-to-end digital process flow.
• International Collaboration & Coordination - Connecting with international stakeholders including central banks and multilateral associations to acquaint ourselves about the developments happening across the world. In addition, collaborate with friendly countries and explore avenues that will entail strategic benefits for the country
• Creating Awareness - Increasing awareness of financial and payment services through academia, industry and trade ssociations.