The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said banks would electronically submit foreign exchange related cases through SBP’s online portal after its formal launch this month.
According to the release statement by the central bank The SBP aims to digitalise processes and move towards a paperless environment, which would ultimately benefit the businesses, a statement said. Two core departments of SBP – Exchange Policy Department (EPD) and Foreign Exchange Operations Department (FEOD) – have recently arranged series of detailed presentation on foreign exchange operations and ‘SBP Online Portal’.
The SBP revised regulations on digital on-boarding of merchants, as part of its efforts to give new options to the general public and broadening the base of financial inclusion in the country.
Under the revised regulation, the banks, including microfinance banks should ensure that merchant accounts were only used for digital collection of payments against the provision of legitimate goods and services, an SBP circular said late on Monday.
However, cash deposit into these accounts was permitted subject to terms and conditions, it added.
The new regulations would allow all customers, including branchless banking level zero accountholders to top/ cash in their accounts up to Rs10,000/month through biometrically verified merchants. However, cash deposit would only be used for digital payments. “Total cash deposit in merchant accounts will not exceed Rs100,000 per month,” it added.
The SBP said the issuance of these merchant on-boarding regulations would enable banks to quickly onboard a large segment of retail merchants and enable them to accept their payments digitally.
The SBP said one of the challenges in the digitisation of retail transactions in Pakistan was the low number of digital payment acceptance points in the country.
There are many reasons for this shortfall, the primary one being the process of merchant on-boarding, which requires a long list of documentation and an even longer process of due diligence by banks, the SBP noted.
Banks to record board, general meetings
The SBP has asked banks to ensure that the deliberations made by the participating board members are duly showed in the minutes of the meetings using name-tags.
“In the event of conflict of interest, the board should detail in minutes as to how they have complied with the organisation’s conflict of interest policy,” an SBP circular said.
The SBP said the company secretary would submit duly certified copies of the draft minutes of the meetings within twenty-one days of the date of such meetings through Data Acquisition Portal (DAP) of the SBP.
