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Pakistan’s obsession with everything Bakra Eid is hard to overstate. Whether it’s young boys heading to the mandi every other night to size up animals, uncles asking the price outside your house, or families having barbecues for the entire week — the festival generates a level of commercial and cultural energy that few other events in the country can match. And all of that energy translates into an enormous amount of money changing hands; almost entirely cash. More than seven million animals were sacrificed nationally in 2025, according to the Pakistan Tanneries Association, with total estimated sales of roughly Rs600 billion.
Few other segments of the economy concentrate this much money in so few places over such a short period. The activity clusters around a small number of large mandis, often at city outskirts, where buyers and sellers carry large sums across distances with real risks of theft and counterfeit notes. It is precisely the kind of environment where digital payments should, in theory, take off. No wonder the State Bank has been trying to do exactly that since 2024, through its “Go Cashless in Cattle Markets” campaign, which has now entered its third year.
