EE-commerce IndexPakistan
Country research · Pakistan · 2026 baseline

Can Pakistan’s
commerce infrastructure
support its ambition?

ECIndex measures the operating environment behind online commerce, from connectivity and payments to delivery, trust and regulation.

Evidence cutoff
15 Sep 2026Assessment status
Research preview v1
Eight-part assessment

The infrastructure behind
every online order.

Scores combine the latest available public indicators with ECIndex market observations. Confidence reflects the recency, coverage and comparability of the evidence.

01 · Payments readiness74

Strongest current layer

Raast, banking apps and wallets have accelerated digital transaction volume. Merchant acceptance is expanding, but the all-in cost of accepting a payment is not yet consistently disclosed or comparable.

Weight 15%High confidence
02 · Growth ecosystem68

Capable but concentrated

A growing network of platforms, fintechs, agencies and founders supports adoption. Access to skills and capital remains uneven outside leading cities.

Weight 10%Medium confidence
03 · Commerce technology66

Tools are widely available

Local merchants can access global and open commerce platforms. Implementation quality, integrations and operational maturity vary sharply.

Weight 12.5%Medium confidence
04 · Digital connectivity64

A large mobile-first base

Broadband subscriptions reached 161 million and 64.2% penetration by March 2026, while 3G/4G reaches more than 81% of the population. The scale is strong, although affordability, quality and inclusion still affect dependable access.

Weight 15%High confidence
05 · Market participation63

Large addressable market

Mobile-first consumers and a broad merchant base create momentum. Informality and limited measurement make the active market difficult to quantify precisely.

Weight 10%Medium confidence
06 · Regulatory environment57

Direction is clearer than execution

Pakistan has e-commerce rules and a new draft policy direction. Businesses still face uncertainty across tax, data, consumer protection and cross-border processes.

Weight 10%Medium confidence
07 · Logistics readiness52

Delivery and cash-flow bottleneck

National courier coverage is substantial, but fulfilment quality varies. Delayed remittance of collected COD funds can also deprive smaller merchants of working capital for several weeks.

Weight 15%Medium confidence
08 · Consumer trust48

The priority gap

Clear seller identity, returns, dispute resolution, authentic reviews and dependable delivery need stronger, more consistent market-wide practice.

Weight 12.5%Low-medium confidence
Digital foundation

From access network
to trusted inbox.

A sale depends on more than a mobile signal. Providers, fibre, hosting, cloud, domains, DNS and business email all influence storefront reliability and customer trust.

Internet service providersEstablished

Broad choice, uneven experience

Pakistan has mobile, fixed-line, fibre and wireless access providers. The remaining issue is consistent speed, uptime, affordability and geographic availability for households and small businesses.

Evidence
207.2m total telecom subscriptions
What to measure next
Provider coverage, median speed, downtime and SME pricing by city
Broadband usersGrowing

Scale is a national advantage

Broadband subscriptions reached 161 million with 64.2% penetration in March 2026. Subscription totals include mobile and fixed connections and should not be read as unique users.

Evidence
Official 2025 to 2026 Economic Survey
Commerce implication
Design mobile-first, low-friction and tolerant of variable connections
Local hosting and data centresEmerging

Policy exists, capacity mapping does not

Pakistan’s Cloud First Policy encourages local and international cloud investment. It also describes fragmented infrastructure and low public-sector cloud use, while 2024 accreditation criteria create a basis for trusted providers.

Evidence
Cloud First Policy and CSP accreditation criteria
What to measure next
Certified facilities, compute capacity, uptime tier, peering and disaster recovery
Business email servicesUnder-measured

A trust layer hiding in plain sight

PKNIC operates the .pk registry and root DNS but does not provide hosting or email. Businesses must obtain these services separately, creating a fragmented path from domain registration to secure, authenticated email.

Evidence
Registry role is documented; national adoption is not
What to measure next
Domain email use, SPF, DKIM, DMARC and secure mailbox adoption

Measurement note: Subscriber and penetration figures measure active connections, not unique individuals. ECIndex will not convert them into a user count without a compatible unique-user source.

Critical operating constraint3–4weeks

COD cash can remain outside the merchant’s business.

Pakistan’s E-Commerce Policy identifies delayed payment by logistics companies as a continuing challenge and says the gap can extend to three or four weeks, hampering small-business cash flow.

Read the government policy evidence ↗
ECIndex recommended standard

Collected today.
Settled electronically.

01Customer pays courier→02Delivery confirmed digitally→03Merchant receives funds
  • Daily or T+1 settlementTransfer collected funds the same day where possible, or by the next business day.
  • Transaction-level reconciliationGive every merchant an electronic file matching order, collection, fee, tax, adjustment and payout.
  • Transparent payout SLAPublish the settlement calendar, cut-off time, deductions and any permitted hold reason before onboarding.
  • Exception accountabilityFlag disputed, returned or high-risk transactions individually instead of holding an entire merchant payout.

Raast already provides real-time payment infrastructure and permits merchant accounts to be credited in real time or under agreed timelines. Courier integration can turn COD collection into a traceable digital payout.

See the State Bank’s Raast P2M requirements ↗
Digital payment affordability

The payment must cost less than the friction it replaces.

Fast settlement does not solve the problem if gateway, acquiring and fixed charges make small online orders uneconomic. Pakistan needs a transparent measure of what a merchant actually pays for every successful digital sale.

Recommended national indicatorEffective cost per
PKR 1,000 collected

Report the median and range by payment rail, merchant size and transaction band. Include all mandatory charges, exclude taxes, and disclose failed-payment and refund costs separately.

Merchant discount rateGateway or platform feeFixed transaction chargeSettlement or withdrawal feeRefund and chargeback cost

ECIndex affordability standard

  • No customer fee for Raast P2MPreserve the State Bank requirement that customers are not charged when paying merchants through Raast.
  • Low and proportionate merchant pricingAvoid fixed charges that punish low-value orders. Publish both the percentage and PKR cost before activation.
  • One all-in price comparisonShow the total effective cost after gateway, acquiring, settlement and mandatory service charges.
  • SME-accessible termsMake competitive pricing available to smaller merchants, not only enterprises able to negotiate private rates.

Evidence note: SBP’s interoperable QR standard names lower capital and transaction costs as a goal. A time-limited Raast QR subsidy for September 2025 through June 2026 permitted regulated entities to charge merchants up to 0.25% in addition to the subsidy. That expired arrangement is an affordability precedent, not a claim about every provider’s current price. Read the circular ↗

Executive diagnosis

Pakistan does not lack demand.
It lacks consistency.

Pakistan enters this transition with a significant mobile advantage. Cellular service reaches most of the population, 3G/4G coverage is broad and the smartphone is the primary commerce interface for many customers and operators.

Payment infrastructure is moving faster than the rest of the commerce journey. A customer can increasingly discover and pay by phone, but confidence can still break at seller verification, delivery, returns or dispute resolution. When a courier collects COD and holds it for weeks, the logistics layer also becomes a source of merchant financing friction.

The highest-value intervention is coordination: connect mobile reach and interoperable payments with trustworthy merchant identity, affordable transaction pricing, daily electronic COD settlement, measurable fulfilment standards and simpler rules for domestic and cross-border trade.

Priority 01

Make trust visible

Standardise merchant identity, contact, return and complaint information, then make verification portable across platforms.

For regulators + platforms
Priority 02

Modernise fulfilment and settlement

Measure delivery quality and require daily or T+1 electronic COD payouts with order-level reconciliation and transparent exceptions.

For couriers + marketplaces
Priority 03

Make digital acceptance affordable

Publish all-in transaction costs, protect low-value orders from punitive fixed fees and help smaller merchants integrate instant payments, reconciliation and refunds.

For banks + fintechs
Priority 04

Build operator capability

Pair accessible tools with practical training in storefront quality, data, service operations and cross-border readiness.

For ecosystem builders
Use the research

One scorecard,
different decisions.

The report is designed as a shared operating view, not a league table.

Merchants

Plan around friction

Prioritise trusted identity, payment reconciliation, delivery visibility and clear returns.

Investors

Find infrastructure gaps

Look for enabling businesses that improve reliability across many stores, not only another storefront.

Policymakers

Track execution

Convert policy goals into published service indicators, adoption measures and accountable milestones.

Providers

Build for local operations

Design integrations for mobile-first teams, cash workflows, fragmented logistics and uneven connectivity.

Provider opportunity map

Where the next layer
can be built.

These are ECIndex opportunity areas derived from the infrastructure gaps. They are not market-size forecasts.

01 · Connectivity

SME-grade managed broadband

Bundles with uptime monitoring, automatic failover, business support and transparent service levels for stores, warehouses and small offices.

ISPs · fibre operators · managed networks
02 · Hosting

Local commerce cloud

Reliable local hosting with CDN, backups, disaster recovery, managed security and simple commerce-platform deployment.

Data centres · cloud providers · hosting companies
03 · Email trust

Business email starter layer

Domain, mailbox, SPF, DKIM and DMARC setup offered as one guided product, with Urdu and English onboarding for smaller merchants.

Registrars · email providers · IT partners
04 · Measurement

Public infrastructure observatory

Comparable data on ISP performance, local hosting, cloud regions, peering, outages, domain health and email authentication.

Regulators · researchers · ECIndex partners
05 · Resilience

Store continuity services

Affordable monitoring, backup storefronts, DNS resilience, status pages and incident support designed for commerce teams.

Cybersecurity · MSPs · platform partners
06 · Inclusion

Low-bandwidth commerce tools

Fast mobile storefronts, compressed media, assisted checkout and merchant operations that remain usable on variable connections.

Platforms · agencies · payment providers
07 · Merchant liquidity

COD settlement infrastructure

Courier-to-bank and courier-to-wallet payout rails with daily settlement, automated reconciliation, visible fees and merchant cash-flow dashboards.

Couriers · banks · fintechs · ERP providers
08 · Payment affordability

Low-cost acceptance for every order

Merchant payment products with public all-in pricing, proportionate fees for micro-orders, instant reconciliation and comparable effective-cost reporting.

Banks · gateways · fintechs · regulators
Scoring methodology

Interpretation with
the evidence attached.

The score is a weighted ECIndex assessment, not a direct average of unrelated external indexes.

How the 62 is calculated

Connectivity, payments and logistics carry 15% each. Commerce technology and consumer trust carry 12.5% each. Regulation, market participation and the growth ecosystem carry 10% each.

Evidence rules

We prefer official and primary sources, retain the source year beside every indicator, and lower confidence when evidence is old, incomplete or not directly comparable.

Update policy

The baseline is reviewed annually. Material payment, connectivity, logistics or regulatory changes may trigger an interim update.

Read the wider ECIndex methodology →
Source register

Primary evidence used
in this baseline.

Publication dates differ because national indicators are released on different schedules.

Finance Division, PakistanPakistan Economic Survey 2025–26Telecom + broadband · Mar 2026 ↗ Finance Division, PakistanPakistan Economic Survey 2024–25, Information TechnologyMobile coverage · Mar 2025 ↗ State Bank of PakistanAnnual Payment Systems Review, FY 2024–25Payments · 2025 ↗ World Bank / ITUIndividuals using the InternetConnectivity · 2024 ↗ World BankLogistics Performance IndexLogistics · 2023 ↗ Ministry of CommerceE-Commerce Policy of PakistanRegulation · 2019 ↗ Ministry of CommerceE-Commerce Policy logistics and COD settlement findingMerchant cash flow · 2019 ↗ State Bank of PakistanRaast Person-to-Merchant service requirementsInstant settlement rails · 2023 ↗ State Bank of PakistanInteroperable QR standard and transaction-cost objectivePayment affordability · 2022 ↗ State Bank of PakistanTime-limited Raast P2M QR subsidy and merchant charge ceilingAffordability precedent · 2025–26 ↗ Ministry of CommerceDraft E-Commerce Policy 2.0, 2025–30Policy direction · 2025 ↗ Ministry of IT and TelecommunicationPakistan Cloud First PolicyHosting + cloud · 2022 ↗ Ministry of IT and TelecommunicationAccreditation Criteria for Cloud Service ProvidersCloud assurance · 2024 ↗ PKNIC.pk registry role and service boundariesDomains + DNS · Current ↗ ECIndexPakistan E-commerce Technology SnapshotPublic web evidence · Live →
Country Commerce Infrastructure Readiness

A baseline designed
to improve with evidence.

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