Branchless banking retailers incentivised

Islamabad : In order to incentivize branchless banking operations in today’s challenging environment, the Cabinet has approved waiver of advance withholding tax on commission collected under Section 233 of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 from branchless banking agents.

“We are striving to do all we can to make sure that bonafide branchless banking operators keep their operations open so that maximum number of people are facilitated,” Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Social Protection and Poverty Alleviation Dr. Sania Nishtar shared on Tuesday, adding, “However, there will no tolerance for corruption.” Todate, more than 177 looters have been arrested from payment points against 140First Investigation Reports filed in various parts of Sindh, Punjab, KP and Balochistan.

The Ehsaas Emergency Cash program, which has been ongoing for the last six days, has provided cash assistance of Rs12,000 each to 2.739 million people; the amount sums up roughly to Rs32.87 billion until now. The registration process to receive emergency cash under this scheme is SMS driven, and this has been ongoing for the last two weeks. To-date, 78.44 million SMS requests have been received. “It is possible that several people from one family apply, hence the number of families applying may be less than this number,” said Dr. Sania.

Ehsaas has announced that the SMS campaign will remain open till April 19. Ehsaas has also released an instructional video to explain to people what they should expect.