The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has launched an innovative programme for end-to-end digitisation to ensure expeditious handling of foreign exchange proceeds, announced SBP Chief Manager Gujranwala Muhammad Waheed Akhtar.
Speaking at an awareness session on “End-to-End Digitalisation of FX Cases” on Wednesday, he highlighted that the SBP was the supreme authority for handling Pakistan’s currency affairs.
“We are also dealing with foreign exchange affairs through 16 operational offices,” he said. “The SBP is now moving towards adoption of latest technology to speed up service delivery so that precious time and energies of customers could be saved.”
SBP BSC Foreign Exchange Operations Department Head Shakeel Muhammad Paracha told event participants that the SBP had introduced a digital regulatory approval system for foreign exchange in March 2020 to facilitate the stakeholders, in particular the exporters and importers.
He elaborated that the new system called “End-to-End Digitalisation of FX Cases” would not only expedite the approval process but would also keep the customers updated on the status of their cases at all stages. He recalled that earlier customers had to visit a commercial bank to submit foreign exchange-related documents and following scrutiny the bank sent them to the SBP for approval, if required.
“In this way, the customers often had to visit commercial bank branches multiple times,” he said. “Furthermore, the customers were also not aware of the status of their applications until their approval or rejection.”
Published in The Express Tribune, March 11th, 2021.
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