SBP completes digitisation of Regulatory Approval System for FX cases

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has completed the digitisation of the Regulatory Approval System (RAS) for Foreign Exchange (FX) cases, it informed on Monday.

The central bank launched the ‘End-to-End Digitalization of FX Cases’ program, under which it provided a fully digitalised platform to business community and individuals approaching banks for their foreign exchange-related requests to SBP, it said.

The project was divided into two phases. In the first phase, banks were linked with ‘SBP FX Regulatory Approval System (RAS)’ on March 24, 2020; which enabled banks to submit FX related cases electronically for regulatory approval of SBP and SBP-Banking Services Corporation (BSC).

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In the second phase of the project which was launched in October, the banks developed portals to digitally receive FX cases from their clients for processing.

The project was successfully completed on June 30, 2021 when 27 banks, constituting 99.6% of the industry’s FX business, launched their portals for digital submission of FX cases by their clients, and now the remaining one bank is also shifting its core banking system and is expected to fully launch portal for its customers by end September 2021, informed SBP.

The central bank said that the banks, on their part, have ensured that FX portals developed by them are secure, easy to use, and cover all FX-related requests.

The central bank said that the RAS significantly enhanced operational efficiency and resulted in cost reduction, improved transparency and led to faster decision making at SBP and banks.

Since the launch of the system, a total of 59,176 FX cases have been submitted digitally by the banks—instead of paper based submission—through SBP FX RAS till July 31, 2021.

The SBP was of the view that the business community and individuals are expected to benefit greatly from this initiative in terms of reduced time and enhanced efficiency. It will also help reducing paper usage, thereby protecting the environment.