SBP facilitates business community thru digitalization for forex cases in banking

KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan has advised all banks to implement digital portals for end-to-end digitalization of case submission and processing to further facilitate the business community in Pakistan, promote ease of doing business, enhance operational efficiency and make processing of Foreign Exchange related cases cost effective and environment friendly.

In the first leg of its end-to-end digitalization drive, SBP launched an online platform- Regulatory Approval System (RAS) to facilitate banks in online submission of foreign exchange related cases to Exchange Policy Department of SBP and Foreign Exchange Operations Department of SBP Banking Service Corporation (SBP BSC), said SBP statement here on Tuesday

The SBP-RAS has been operational since March 24, 2020 whereby banks are submitting their cases online to FEOD and manual case submission has been discontinued. Later on, paper based case submission to EPD by banks was also discontinued with effect from August 28, 2020.

In the next leg of its digitalization drive, SBP instructed banks to develop portals to facilitate their customers for online submission of cases to banks and abolish paper based case submission.

In this background, twenty-one banks have already developed their portals and started on-boarding their customers besides receiving cases digitally, while the rest of the banks are in the development phase and customers’ on-boarding is underway.

In view of SBP’s priority for end-to-end digitalization of foreign exchange related case submission, banks have been advised to complete development of portals, on-boarding and educating their customers for the same and discontinue paper-based submission of foreign exchange related cases to them by their clients latest by June 30, 2021.

It has further been advised that banks must make comprehensive arrangements for any contingency and ensure business continuity in case of disruption in their portals.