What does SBP want with the Bakra Mandi?

The State Bank of Pakistan wants this year’s Eid ul Adha cattle markets to do more than sell sacrificial animals. It wants them to become temporary digital-payment grounds where buyers, sellers, transporters, fodder suppliers, water vendors and parking operators are pushed, even if briefly, into the formal payment system.

For Eid ul Adha 2026, the central bank has expanded its Go Cashless campaign to 96 cattle markets across the country, up from 54 markets last year. Under the plan, 22 banks will set up camps and kiosks at assigned markets, onboard sellers and service providers, open accounts, deploy QR codes, and support payments through mobile banking apps, branchless banking wallets, Raast-enabled services and QR-based channels. SBP has also allowed temporary relaxations in transaction and account balance limits from May 14 to June 5, 2026, while mobile banking vans, ATMs and cash deposit machines will be deployed where feasible. 

On paper, the initiative is about convenience and safety. Buyers do not have to carry large amounts of cash into crowded markets, and sellers can receive payments without having to hold bundles of notes at makeshift stalls. But the more interesting question is what the central bank and banks want from a market that appears, for most of the year, to sit far away from the formal financial system.

The answer lies in the scale of Bakra Mandi. Pakistan’s annual cattle markets remain largely informal, seasonal and only partially measured. There is no official transaction-level map of how much money changes hands in these markets each year, how much is paid in cash, how much goes to transporters, how much to feed suppliers, or how much is retained by livestock farmers after costs.