AfPayAfghanistan’s national card scheme, run by APS, and the country’s only domestic card rail at a time when it is cut off from international networks.Afghanistan Payments System / Da Afghanistan Bank
Global registry · Asia-Pacific · South Asia
Afghanistan Payment systems
4 systems listed.
This country doesn’t have a written market analysis yet: e-commerce shares, regulator, and key players are still to be documented. The systems below, however, are verified.
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Payments in Oceania and CanadaPayments in Central AsiaPayments in South Asia outside IndiaPayments in Southeast AsiaPayments in Japan and KoreaPayments in Malaysia and SingaporeAccepting payments in Australia and New ZealandAccepting payments in Indonesia and ThailandAccepting payments in Japan and South KoreaAccepting payments in Southeast AsiaPayments in Asia: super-apps, public rails, and cross-border QROpening a new market: the payments playbook
Card schemes
APS (Afghanistan Payments System)Afghanistan’s national electronic payment switch, open on equal terms to banks, microfinance institutions, EMIs, and fintechs; it runs on BPC’s SmartVista platform.Wholly owned subsidiary of Da Afghanistan Bank (the central bank) · since 2011
Wallets
HesabPayAfghanistan’s digital channel for aid distribution: the World Food Programme and World Bank-backed programs use it to pay beneficiaries who have neither a bank account nor a smartphone. A textbook case of a payment rail standing in for the banking system in a country under sanctions.Hesab (Afghan digital payment platform available via app, USSD, web browser, POS terminals, and prepaid cards; the Algorand Foundation is a strategic investor)
Other
ATS (Automated Transfer System)Afghanistan's RTGS, launched in 2020 by the central bank and upgraded since. It complements ACSS (2005) and ICPSS (2017), which were connected to the Ministry of Finance's and private banks' systems in 2023. APS and AfPay rely on it for settlement in a country cut off from international card networks. ⚠️ The acronym “AIPS” appears in secondary sources, but Da Afghanistan Bank does not use it, and AIPS is the name of Albania's RTGS.Da Afghanistan Bank · since 2020