The Faisalabad Electric Supply Company has introduced a QR code payment facility that lets its customers pay electricity bills and demand notices by scanning a code. Developed with the Power Information Technology Company, the service means consumers no longer have to visit a bank or stand in a queue. They can pay from home, through the banking app or mobile wallet they already use, and receive confirmation the moment the payment goes through.
Using it is straightforward. The customer opens their banking app or mobile wallet, scans the QR code printed on the original bill or demand notice, checks that the amount on the screen matches the bill, and confirms the payment. The service runs around the clock, seven days a week, so a bill can be paid late at night or on a public holiday, long after the banks have closed. FESCO Chief Executive Engineer Abid Rasheed said the step would make paying faster and easier, and he advised customers to scan codes only from their original bills and to verify the amount before paying. Anyone who needs help can call the FESCO helpline at 118.
The change matters because of the scale of the company behind it. FESCO is one of Pakistan’s state-owned power distribution companies, incorporated in 1998 and headquartered in Faisalabad. It supplies about 5.7 million consumers across eight districts of central Punjab: Faisalabad, Sargodha, Mianwali, Khushab, Jhang, Bhakkar, Toba Tek Singh and Chiniot, a region home to more than 26 million people. Almost nine in ten of its connections are domestic households. Faisalabad is the centre of the textile industry, so the company also serves many small factories and power looms. Until now, many customers paid in cash at a bank counter, waiting in line and keeping the stamped receipt as proof.
The technology comes from the Power Information Technology Company, known as PITC, which already runs the online bill system used by the power distribution companies. Its portal lets consumers look up a duplicate bill using a reference number, and it supplies the billing data printed on every bill. The QR code carries the payment details for that particular bill, so scanning it removes the need to type in a long consumer number by hand, which is where mistakes most often crept in. Once scanned, the app shows the amount due, the customer checks it, and the payment goes to the correct account.
FESCO’s move is part of a wider shift in how Pakistanis pay. The State Bank of Pakistan runs an instant payment system called Raast, which moves money between accounts and wallets in seconds, and it issued a standard for interoperable QR codes in March 2022, with a merchant version rolled out to every bank and wallet in December 2023. The central bank’s figures show how quickly the habit has caught on. In the year ending in June 2025, more than 86 million payments worth Rs234 billion were made by scanning a QR code. The following year, QR-enabled merchants rose to about 3.8 million and QR transactions reached 297 million worth Rs1.6 trillion. Digital channels now account for more than 92 per cent of retail payment transactions.
For households in FESCO’s region, the practical difference is simple. A bill that used to mean a trip to the bank can now be settled in under a minute, with confirmation arriving before the phone is put away. That helps shift workers and daily wage earners who cannot reach a bank during working hours, and older customers who rely on a family member with a phone to pay on their behalf. It also helps the company, because payments that arrive instantly and match the right account mean fewer complaints about bills wrongly shown as unpaid.
There are cautions that come with the convenience. A QR code is only as safe as the paper it is printed on, so customers should scan the code on the original bill or demand notice and check the amount on screen before paying. A code on a photocopy, a forwarded image or a slip handed over by a stranger should not be trusted. Anyone unsure should call the helpline at 118 rather than guessing. The advice is worth heeding, because QR payment fraud usually works by replacing a genuine code with one that points to someone else’s account, and a payment sent to the wrong account is very hard to get back.
What happens next will show whether the facility becomes the normal way to pay a FESCO bill or remains one option among many. If customers take to it, the queues at bank counters should shrink, and the company will have a clearer, faster picture of what has been collected and what is still owed. Other distribution companies are moving in the same direction, and a system that works smoothly in Faisalabad is likely to be copied elsewhere. The real test is not the launch but the everyday experience: whether the code scans cleanly on a worn bill and whether customers who have never paid by phone before find the process simple enough to trust.
