Central bank to move some BSC operations out of Karachi

KARACHI: The central bank would relocate some offices of its subsidiary—Banking Services Corporation (BSC) to Lahore and Islamabad to enhance operational efficiency, a statement said on Tuesday.

“The management has made a decision to carry out SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) BSC functions from central and northern regions as an initiative to improve organisational performance, enhance effectiveness of internal controls, ensure consistency in decisions and bring about efficiency in operations,” it added.

The central region includes: Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Multan. The cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan fall in north region.  

The SBP (BSC) caters to operational and logistic work and its functions are being managed through a network of 16 offices, spread across major cities, and head office in Karachi.

“Out of 11 departments of BSC’s five departments, dealing with currency management, government banking, internal audit, foreign exchange operations and implementation of Development Finance Group (DFG) related policies are being partially relocated to these regions for greater operational efficiency and logistic ease,” the central bank said.

Bankers said that decentralisation of the BSC’s operations is a welcome move.

“This step will bring the head office of the SBP’s BSC closer to its field offices and bring improvement in its operations,” said a senior banker.   

The SBP already managing currency through offices located in Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, in addition to Karachi. Likewise, foreign exchange operations and DFG department both have their units functioning at these offices.

“Further, a sizeable proportion of these departments shall be retained at Karachi to meet the needs of southern market,” the SBP said.

It would be pertinent to mention here that the SBP will continue to function from Karachi and none of its department is being shifted to any other city, the statement said.

An analysis of the existing work quantum of BSC reflects that performance at times is affected due to the fact that majority of its operations requiring immediate decision making by senior management are being performed at field offices located in central and north regions, it added.

The BSC was established as a wholly owned subsidiary of the central bank in January, 2002, under the Banking Services Corporation Ordinance 2001.

The corporation has been entrusted with operational responsibilities related to currency distribution, foreign currency operations, and banker to the governments, as also dissemination and implementation of policies on behalf of Development Finance Group.