Understanding Regional QR Payment Standards in South Asia
The rapid demonetization of cash in South Asia has been driven by standardized interoperable QR code switches. In Pakistan, the State Bank of Pakistan launched Raast to eliminate merchant transaction fees. In India, the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) powers billions of monthly retail payments.
The EMVCo Merchant-Presented QR Architecture
The Raast standard follows the global EMVCo specification, using Tag-Length-Value (TLV) encoding. Each data element is identified by a two-digit numerical tag, followed by a two-digit length indicator and the raw value. Because this architecture is open and standardized, customers can scan the same physical countertop code regardless of which banking app they use.
