Pakistan Post to expand free remittance service to 1000 locations

• At the moment only 500 Pakistan Post Offices offer the Pakistan Remittance Initiative (PRI) service.
• Under PRI, customers can collect their foreign remittances without paying any charges from the Pakistan Post locations.

In order to facilitate the process of sending remittance to the country, Pakistan Post plans to expand the number of post offices offering free remittance service to 1000 within 12 months.

At the moment only 500 Pakistan Post Offices offer the Pakistan Remittance Initiative (PRI), a service under which remittance beneficiaries' can collect their remittance payments sent from abroad using NBP Remittance Services from the Pakistan Post Office locations free of charge.

“We are using NBP’s software since it has 41 banks and other financial organizations as partners world over. Anyone who wants to send money will use any of these partner institutions and the money will be delivered to the family through the closest designated post office,” said Pakistan Post’s deputy director-general, Khawaja Imran Raza, quoted Arab News.

Informing about the process, Raza said that biometric machines have been installed to meet the international standards and obligations of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF). “The biometric verification of every recipient will be performed through KYC (Know Your Customer) and CDD (Customer Due Diligence). In order to carry out these services, our NBP software is connected to the NADRA database,” informed Raza.

The official added that these services would be performed by “postman mobile banker” through fingerprint-enabled mobile devices that would be used to deliver money at the beneficiary’s doorstep. “We have already started the pilot project with 10 handheld devices,” he said.

Under PRI, customers can collect their foreign remittances without paying any charges from the Pakistan Post locations by providing original CNIC of the beneficiary, PIN Code/Secret PIN number, expected amount of remittance payment and remitter's name and details.

Meanwhile, customers wishing to send their remittances through Pakistan Post's selected branches can visit any of National Bank's correspondents and request a cash transaction for NBP.

The booking agent will provide a secret code/PIN number to the remitter. The remitter has to share the PIN number with the customer and inform them about the exact amount send in Pakistani Rupees. The transactions can be sent free of charge (above US$200) and can be collected for Free from either National Bank of Pakistan or any participating Pakistan Post Office location.