SBP waives mobile, internet banking service fees

KARACHI: The central bank on Wednesday waived fees on various internet and mobile banking services for consumers to promote digitisation in the country.

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) instructed all banks to provide minimum set of services on their internet and mobile banking channels. These services include bill payments, funds transfer/interbank fund transfer, beneficiary management, limit management, credit and debit card management, and stop cheque payment.

“To encourage the 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,” the SBP said in a statement. “The digitisation of the entire payment process is hindered if the customers can make payments to only those billers that are registered with their own bank. Hence, in order to facilitate the customers, the banks have been advised to make necessary arrangements to ensure that their customers can make online payments to maximum number of billers.” To promote the use of payment cards, the banks will issue debit card to all new bank account holders and customers who have not previously opted for a debit card, unless the customer opts not to receive any payment card. However, this requirement will not be applicable on customers that are not literate, photo account holders and visually impaired persons. The banks have been authenticating their customers at the bank counters using signatures and paper based instruments. The existing EMV card infrastructure provides secure authentication. There is potential to facilitate customers by using this infrastructure to replace the manual authentication process. In this regard, the banks/microfinance banks are now permitted to authenticate their customers at branch counters using chip-and-pin cards and 2-factor authentication and provide them banking services.

“Considering the significance of digitisation, the banks have also been advised to create a role of chief digital officer who would be responsible for steering the digitisation efforts,” said the SBP. “Further, accelerated digitization will also be part of KPIs [key performance indicators] of every chief executive officer, which will be monitored by their board for its achievement on at least half-yearly basis.” The SBP took several initiatives to promote digitization, including provision of repayment facility to bank borrowers on alternate delivery channels and streamlining of payment card security regulations in order to bring convenience to the consumers with risk coverage that commensurate with the ever evolving payment card markets and in line with international standards.

The SBP also launched the country’s first instant payment system, RAAST. The charges of all fund transfer and real-time gross settlement transactions for the consumers amid the COVID-19 pandemic have been waived. Bank charges have also been rationalized for improving payment card infrastructure.

“These instructions not only made the business of deployment of POS [point of sale] machines a profitable proposition for the financial industry, but also value added solution for consumers,” said the SBP. “The steps are just a tip of the iceberg which is in line with SBP’s declared objectives to digitize payment and financial services. SBP expects the industry to support these efforts, resulting in increased convenience for the customers to fulfill their financial needs through safe, rapid and secure digital infrastructure in Pakistan.”