The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has directed all banks in the country to provide a set of minimum services on internet banking and mobile banking channels, will encourage the use of digital payment modes for many kinds of payments.
On Wednesday, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) instructed all banks to provide IB and MB to encourage the use of digital payment modes for various kinds of payments and to replace the manual process. The SBP said in a circular, “All banks should provide the minimum set of services on their IB and MB channels including bill payments, funds transfer, beneficiary management, limit management, credit and debit card management, stop cheque payment etc [means a customer can ask his or her bank to stop payment on any cheque which he or she considers not required for making payment],”
“For encouraging use of internet and mobile banking services by their customers, banks will not levy any activation, subscription, or annual charges on their customers for using such services,” directed the SBP.
Read More: SBP mulls relaxing FE regulations for startups to raise convertible debts
The digitization of the whole payment process is hindered if the customers can make payments to only those billers that are registered with their own bank. Therefore, the banks have been advised to make necessary arrangements to facilitate customers and to ensure that the customers may make online payments to the maximum number of billers.
Furthermore, the banks are going to issue a debit card to almost all customers and all new accounts for the promotion of the usage of payment cards. But this facility will not be applicable for the costumer who are illiterate, photo account holders, and visually impaired persons.
“In this regard, the banks and microfinance banks are now permitted to authenticate their customers at branch counters using chip-and-pin cards and 2 Factor Authentication (2FA) and provide them banking services,” said the SBP.
