The short answer is: no, but they are leading the charge towards a “less-cash” society.

As of August 27, 2025, the rise of mobile payments has been nothing short of revolutionary. Here in Rawalpindi and across every major city in Pakistan, the familiar sight of scanning a QR code with a smartphone to pay for everything from a cup of tea to a new television has become commonplace. The convenience, speed, and security of mobile payment apps like EasyPaisa, JazzCash, and integrated banking apps have fundamentally changed our relationship with money.

However, while mobile payments have decisively ended the dominance of cash, they have not—and will not in the near future—signal the complete end of physical cash transactions. The future is not entirely cashless, but it is one where cash is no longer king.

The Unstoppable Rise of Mobile Payments

The global and local shift towards mobile payments has been driven by a perfect storm of technological advancement and consumer demand.

  • Unparalleled Convenience: The single biggest driver is convenience. Mobile payments eliminate the need to carry bulky wallets, count out exact change, or worry about the security of carrying large sums of cash. A transaction can be completed in seconds with a device that is already in our hands.
  • The Power of the QR Code: The widespread adoption of QR codes has been a game-changer, especially for small businesses in Pakistan. It allows a small street vendor or a home-based business to accept digital payments instantly without the need for an expensive point-of-sale (POS) machine.
  • Financial Inclusion: For a significant portion of the population, a mobile wallet has become their first formal financial account, providing access to a range of services beyond simple payments, such as savings, loans, and bill payments, all through a simple feature phone or smartphone.
  • Enhanced Security: For the consumer, mobile payments are often more secure than traditional card payments. They use technologies like tokenization, which replaces your actual card number with a unique, one-time code for each transaction. Even if the merchant’s system is breached, your real card details are not exposed.

Why Cash Still Endures

Despite the clear advantages of mobile payments, cash remains a resilient and essential part of the economy for several key reasons.

  • The Unbanked and Underbanked Population: While mobile wallets have improved financial inclusion, a segment of the population, particularly in rural and remote areas, still operates entirely outside the formal banking and digital payment ecosystem.
  • The Digital Divide and Trust: Lack of reliable internet access and a lingering distrust of digital systems among some demographics, especially older populations, mean that cash is still seen as the most reliable and understandable form of payment.
  • Anonymity and Privacy: Cash is anonymous. It does not create a digital trail of your every purchase, which is a feature that many people value for privacy reasons.
  • The Informal Economy: A significant portion of Pakistan’s economy is informal. Small-scale, daily-wage transactions often happen exclusively in cash for simplicity and to remain outside the formal tax structure.
  • Resilience: In the event of a power outage or a network failure, digital payment systems go down. Cash is the ultimate fail-safe; it always works.

The View from Pakistan in 2025: A Tale of Two Economies

Here in Pakistan, the situation perfectly illustrates this global trend. In urban centers like Rawalpindi, Lahore, and Karachi, one can comfortably go through a day using only a mobile wallet for payments at cafes, supermarkets, and ride-sharing services. The digital economy is thriving.

However, a short drive outside the city reveals a different reality where the local karyana store, the farmer’s market, and many small-scale service providers still operate predominantly, if not exclusively, on a cash basis.

This creates a hybrid or “dual” economy, where mobile payments and cash coexist and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Conclusion: A “Less-Cash,” Not “Cashless,” Future

The trajectory is clear: mobile payments will continue to grow in dominance, chipping away at the market share of cash with every passing year. The convenience is too compelling, and the integration into our digital lives is too deep.

However, the idea of a completely cashless society in the next decade seems unlikely. Cash serves essential functions for privacy, resilience, and inclusion that digital payments have yet to fully replace. The end of cash is not imminent, but the end of its reign is already here. We are living in the era of the mobile wallet, a time defined not by the absence of cash, but by the freedom to choose a faster, more convenient, and often safer digital alternative.