ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin on Tuesday presided over a meeting on the establishment of Pakistan International e-payment gateway (IPG).
The IPG will pave the way for financial inclusion and payment digitization which is a sub-component of the 09-pillars of the E-Commerce policy.
Federal Minister for IT & Telecommunication Syed Amin-ul-Haque, Adviser on Commerce Abdul Razak Dawood, CEO NITB Syed Hussain Abbas Kazmi, Secretary Commerce, senior policy analyst and other senior officers participated in the meeting.
A consultative session was held with all relevant stakeholders to identify gaps between payment solutions available domestically and its integration with international payment gateway solution providers to promote e-commerce.
The Adviser on Commerce briefed the participants about the current digital financial landscape in the country.
SBP governor outlined steps being taken for the financial inclusion of domestic banks.
Federal Minister for IT and Telecom assured full facilitation in the provision of enabling environment to the service providers as needed under IPG.
In his remarks, the Finance Minister directed the authorities to follow best international practices and devise a way forward for implementing an international payment gateway ensuring transparency and due consultation with key stakeholders both in public and private sectors.
The Finance Minister constituted a 04-member Committee headed by the Secretary of Commerce and comprising representatives of the Ministry of Commerce, Finance Division and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
The Finance Minister further directed to seek input from the President, Pakistan Banking Association (PBA) and leading market players from the private sector to understand their requirements and present a framework for further deliberation after 04 weeks.
In his concluding remarks, the Finance Minister stated that Government will be the facilitator and regulator in a journey towards implementing IPG. The establishment of an international e-payment gateway will improve consumer confidence in E-Commerce through global connectivity
Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 has specifically outlined two years jail for concealment of income. Section 192A of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, as amended through the Finance Act, 2021 and updated until June 30, 2021, outlines serious legal consequences for concealment of income. According to this provision, any individual who deliberately hides their income or provides inaccurate details during tax proceedings can face strict legal action.
KARACHI: Following are the exchange rates of foreign currencies in Pak Rupee (PKR) on September 21, 2021 (The rates are updated at 09:00 AM):
Currency
Buying
Selling
Australian Dollar
120.50
122.5
Bahrain Dinar
386.60
388.36
Canadian Dollar
133.50
135.50
China Yuan
23.70
23.85
Danish Krone
23.40
23.70
Euro
197.50
199.50
Hong Kong Dollar
16.60
16.85
Indian Rupee
2.03
2.10
Japanese Yen
1.41
1.44
Kuwaiti Dinar
481.50
484.00
Malaysian Ringgit
36.40
36.75
NewZealand $
96.25
96.95
Norwegians Krone
17.45
17.70
Omani Riyal
392.50
394.50
Qatari Riyal
39.70
40.30
Saudi Riyal
44.65
45.30
Singapore Dollar
122.75
124.00
Swedish Korona
18.10
18.35
Swiss Franc
159.60
160.50
Thai Bhat
4.80
4.90
U.A.E Dirham
46.00
46.50
UK Pound Sterling
232.50
235.50
US Dollar
169.00
170.00
Disclaimer: Team PKRevenue.com provides the available rates of the open market, which are subject to change every hour. Team PKRevenue.com provides the available exchange rates at the time of posting the story. So the team is not responsible for any inaccuracy of the data.
KARACHI: Following are the exchange rates of foreign currencies in Pak Rupee (PKR) on September 20, 2021 (The rates are updated at 09:51 AM):
Currency
Buying
Selling
Australian Dollar
121.6
123.6
Bahrain Dinar
386.6
388.36
Canadian Dollar
133.1
135.1
China Yuan
23.7
23.85
Danish Krone
23.4
23.7
Euro
197
199
Hong Kong Dollar
16.6
16.85
Indian Rupee
2.03
2.1
Japanese Yen
1.41
1.44
Kuwaiti Dinar
481.9
484.45
Malaysian Ringgit
36.65
37
NewZealand $
96.4
97.1
Norwegians Krone
17.5
17.75
Omani Riyal
392.75
394.8
Qatari Riyal
39.7
40.3
Saudi Riyal
44.45
45.05
Singapore Dollar
123.1
124.6
Swedish Korona
18.1
18.35
Swiss Franc
159.6
160.5
Thai Bhat
4.8
4.9
U.A.E Dirham
45.45
46.05
UK Pound Sterling
232.6
235.1
US Dollar
167.9
169.4
Disclaimer: Team PKRevenue.com provides the available rates of the open market, which are subject to change every hour. Team PKRevenue.com provides the available exchange rates at the time of posting the story. So the team is not responsible for any inaccuracy of the data.
KARACHI: The foreign exchange market in Pakistan updated the buying and selling rates for major foreign currencies this morning at 9:40 AM. These rates serve as a crucial benchmark for individuals and businesses engaging in trade, travel, and remittances.
KARACHI: Following are the exchange rates of foreign currencies in Pak Rupee (PKR) on September 18, 2021 (The rates are updated at 11:15 AM):
Currency
Buying
Selling
Australian Dollar
121.60
123.50
Bahrain Dinar
386.60
388.36
Canadian Dollar
133.10
135.10
China Yuan
23.70
23.85
Danish Krone
23.40
23.70
Euro
197.00
199.00
Hong Kong Dollar
16.60
16.85
Indian Rupee
2.03
2.10
Japanese Yen
1.41
1.44
Kuwaiti Dinar
481.90
484.45
Malaysian Ringgit
36.65
37.00
NewZealand $
96.40
97.10
Norwegians Krone
17.50
17.75
Omani Riyal
392.75
394.80
Qatari Riyal
39.70
40.30
Saudi Riyal
44.45
45.05
Singapore Dollar
123.40
124.50
Swedish Korona
18.10
18.35
Swiss Franc
159.60
160.50
Thai Bhat
4.80
4.90
U.A.E Dirham
45.45
46.05
UK Pound Sterling
232.60
235.10
US Dollar
167.80
169.30
Disclaimer: Team PKRevenue.com provides the available rates of the open market, which are subject to change every hour. Team PKRevenue.com provides the available exchange rates at the time of posting the story. So the team is not responsible for any inaccuracy of the data.
ISLAMABAD: Asad Umar (Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives) on Friday said that work on projects under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are continued in full swing.
He dispelled the impression of slowing down the pace of the CPEC projects saying that major work of the CPEC projects was completed during the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf (PTI) government.
He said in first phase of CPEC, two major sectors- power and infrastructure, were under the main focus. “Power projects with an installed capacity of 3,340 MW were completed during the previous government while 5,864 MW of power projects were being completed during the current government’s tenure,” he said while addressing a press conference here.
Apart from it, he started work on another 1824 MW project that had also been started recently that would be completed after the tenure of the current government.
In the infrastructure and road sector, the minister informed that the PML-N government completed 394 kilometers long motorways and highways under CPEC while the current government had so far completed 413 km of the motorways and highways.
Asad Umar said the PML-N government totally ignored the Western Corridor that was the heart of CPEC.
He said the Gwdar-Hoshab road was completed by the previous government while the Hakla-Dera Ismail Khan motorway was initiated by the PML-N government who completed 42% of the project while the rest was completed by the current government.
Apart from these two projects, the previous government could not reach even the initial approval stage of any of the road projects on the Western alignment, he added.
The minister said the DI Khan-Zhob road (210 km) was approved and a loan application had been submitted while negotiations for the loan were in process.
Similarly, the contractor for the Zhob-Queta project had been mobilized and PC-1 of the Quetta-Khuzdar road was approved while funding for this project had already been allocated in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2021-22.
He informed that the current government had completed 67% of the work of the 110 km Khuzda-Basima road while it would also complete the rest work soon.
Likewise, the 146 km Hoshab-Awaran road project had also been approved and the contractor had been mobilized. The Hoshab-Awaran project is an integral part of the CPEC central alignment that connects the port city of Gwadar with Sindh.
“In fact, real work on Western Corridor of CPEC was started during PTI government,” he said adding that it did not wait for the Chinese investment and started work on the projects with its own resources under PSDP.
The minister informed the government was also starting work on the connecting roads to the Western Alignment. Peshawar-DI Khan Motorway project is one such project which has recently been approved.
Similarly, the 460 km Karachi-Quetta-Chaman road has also been approved and one of the portions would be completed by the government itself while the other sections of this project would be constructed under Public-Private Partnership.
Likewise, the government has also accorded approval to other such roads such as Nokundi-Mashkel road, Mashkel-Panjgur road, Awaran-Jhal Jhao road.
The minister said these connecting roads and the Wester Alignment were being built to take maximum benefit of the opportunities to be open up in Afghanistan after peace and stability prevailed in the country.
Asad Umar said after completion of the first phase, we were entering in the second but very important phase of CPEC under which investment would come to a range of sectors including industrialization, agriculture, livestock, science technology, and other social sector development sectors.
He said when the current government took over, not a single Special Economic Zone (SEZ) under CPEC was operational but now two SEZs Allama Iqbal Industrial Zone in Faisalabad and Rashakai in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were operational while another SEZ named Dhabeji would also be functional soon once the Sindh government has selected the contractor for the SEZ.
Agriculture, he said was an important sector in which the Chinese had vast experience who would help Pakistan in strengthening the sector.
So far eight important initiatives in the agriculture sector have been approved under CPEC under which the Chinese would help Pakistanis to develop the sector.
He said the Chinese would help Pakistani farmers in increasing the per acre yield of the crops. Similarly, he said the Chinese would help in removing foot and mouth disease from the animals as this disease was the major hurdle in way of exporting Halal meat to the world.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has reaffirmed its commitment to the September 30, 2021 deadline for filing annual tax returns, emphasizing the importance of improving the tax compliance culture in the country.
State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday launched “Banking on Equality Policy: Reducing the Gender Gap in Financial Inclusion (FI)” to enhance women’s financial inclusion.
Under the policy, it has been decided to introduce a gender lens within the financial sector through specific measures in key areas, to bring a shift towards women friendly business practices.
Framework of Measures under Banking on Equality Policy
These measures are targeted to improve institutional diversity, product diversification, customer acquisition & facilitation approaches and better gender-disaggregated data collection for improving women’s access to financial services.
The implementation of this policy will facilitate in reducing the gender gap in bank staff, as well as in improving the access and use of financial products & services by women. It will also be helpful in achieving National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) headline target of 20 million active women bank accounts by 2023.
1. Applicability/Scope
The ensuing instructions shall be applicable on Commercial Banks, Islamic Banks, Microfinance Banks (MFBs), Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and those Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs) that have received commercial approval, hereinafter referred collectively as Financial Institutions (FIs).
2. Measures to Enhance Gender Diversity
Proportionate improvement in the ratio of women working in FIs is expected to aid the development of policies and practices for improving gender balance across the financial sector as well as developing women friendly products & services. Accordingly, FIs shall take the following measures:
2.1. Comprehensive Policy
All FIs shall develop a comprehensive gender mainstreaming policy to reduce the gender gap, duly approved by their Boards within six months of issuance of this circular. The policy must include:
2.1.1. Action plans along with timelines and responsibilities, to reach the goal of improving their institution’s overall gender diversity.
2.1.2. Proportionate strategies/ policies to encourage women’s employment rate. Towards this end, strategies/ policies shall encompass specific measures for hiring, retention, promotion, and mentoring gender diversity.
2.1.3. Strategies to improve representation of women in senior management, where merit-based criteria should be developed for women’s career growth path. The objective of the FIs’ policies should be to promote high potential women to senior management and improve the FIs’ outreach towards more women.
2.1.4. Set gender diversity action plans and targets in the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) of their C-suite executives. The KPIs shall cascade to the regional and branch level staff to include a certain weightage of targets for accounts opened and financings for females.
2.1.5. Framework for protection against workplace harassment, harassment in customer interactions and improving overall work environment for women.
2.1.6. Strategies and measures to enhance women’s access and use of FIs’ products & services.
2.2. Governance In order to have institutional readiness for creating more focus on gender intentional approaches:
2.2.1. FIs must have at least one female independent director in their Board of Directors preferably within six months of the issuance of this circular, in-line with the SECP’s instructions under Section 154 of Companies Act, which states “Public interest companies shall be required to have female representation on their board”.
2.2.2. FIs shall create a dedicated Management Sub-Committee on Gender, or amend TORs of existing Management Committee within three months of the issuance of this circular, to create gender perspective in their institutions’ policies and practices. Moreover,
– FIs will appoint one to two focal person(s) on gender.
– The focal person(s) shall submit quarterly progress to SBP on FIs women’s financial inclusion measures in line with their gender mainstreaming policy.
2.2.3. FIs shall set up a specialized dedicated Women’s Financial Services Department within six months of the issuance of this circular.
2.3. Gender Diversity KPIs and Targets
The policy envisions that all FIs as a whole shall have 20% women in their workforce by 2024. However, keeping in consideration the FIs’ business models and women’s ratio in existing work force, SBP will assign separate institutional targets to Commercial Banks, MFBs, Islamic Banks, Specialized Banks and DFIs.
The following target grid for incremental percentage increase in women workforce will be observed by FIs from the baseline of women workforce as of December 2020:
3. Women Centric Products & Services and Outreach Targets
To shift from gender neutral to gender inclusive product design and marketing, it is imperative that all FIs have dedicated teams tasked to embed a gender lens in all product offerings and marketing strategies.
3.1. Women Centric Products & Services
Towards this end, the specialized Women Financial Services Department at FIs would:
3.1.1. Be responsible for reviewing and designing the FIs’ products, services and marketing strategies from a gender perspective, while keeping in view various use cases of women demographics of all ages and life cycle stages.
3.1.2. Develop new digital financial products for specific segments including startups with focus on women segments.
3.1.3. Ensure the achievement of assigned gender disaggregated outreach targets for women centric products & services, access & usage of accounts, and financing to women entrepreneurs under priority sectors like agri finance, housing finance, MSME finance, etc. Further, each FI will be assigned indicative gender disaggregated targets for active accounts separately.
3.2. Partnerships and Collaborations
The FIs shall:
3.2.1.Explore partnerships with statutory bodies such as NADRA to create opportunities for raising awareness and facilitating bank account opening of women when they are registering/updating ID cards, and/or voting etc.
3.2.2. Explore partnerships with Ehsaas program to facilitate their beneficiaries to graduate from simple cash transfers to use of other products & services such as savings and credit products, etc.
3.2.3. Develop linkages with universities/ academia, chambers of commerce and trade bodies to develop scholarship, career counselling and mentorship programs to attract more women in banking careers.
3.2.4. Team up with the Fintechs, Incubation Centers and Accelerators for developing & marketing digital financial products and services for women startups.
3.2.5. Partner with women associations/networks and civil society organizations to engage with women at the grassroots levels for provision of financial services.
3.3. Trainings and Capacity Building of FIs’ Staff
FIs shall ensure that all of their employees including those involved in mobilizing, onboarding and serving women customers, must go through gender sensitivity training. To ensure facilitation and availability of proper guidance for women customers, the training must include:
3.3.1. Appropriate contents to help employees to understand existing gender relations, eliminate implicit gender biases, improve the workplace environment and customer interactions, and factor in the needs and priorities of men & women to understand their expectations while planning, implementing and evaluating its activities.
3.3.2. Whistleblowing policy to disclose wrongdoings and instances of non-compliance.
3.3.3. Effective marketing approaches to offer informed and improved products, including better facilitation for women customers.
3.3.4. Key features and important information about FIs’ products & services including SBP and Government schemes.
3.4. Financial Literacy and Mass Awareness
To create awareness and impart financial literacy among women to access formal financial products & services to make well-informed financial decisions, FIs will:
3.4.1. Conduct women’s financial literacy and marketing campaigns, based on need assessment/ market analysis/ consumer surveys, to improve awareness of financial products and services for women.
3.4.2. Invest in digital initiatives that increase financial literacy and digital skills of women and girls across all levels of education and income.
3.4.3. Activate influencer women leaders at local level as brand ambassadors to reach out to more women customers.
3.4.4. Formulate a female marketing team, tasked to increase women financial literacy and enhance their inclusion in the formal financial system. They may also educate men to encourage and facilitate women to avail financial services.
3.4.5. Create tab/section of “Women Financial Services” on their websites and apps for their respective women centric products & services.
3.5. Simplification of Loan Processes & Documentation
To make the financing process easier for women, all FIs must:
3.5.1. Simplify the credit policies & processes for financing to women and provide non-financial advisory services especially to women SMEs to access formal financial services.
3.5.2. Provide digital access to SBP Refinance & Credit Guarantee Scheme for Women Entrepreneurs in due course of time.
4. Women’s Champions at all Customer Touch Points
Presence of women champions and specialized resources at all customer touch points, such as bank branches, branchless banking agents, call centers and alternate delivery channels is critical to aid women’s adoption of conventional and digital financial services.
4.1. In order to make women comfortable to approach FIs and access financial products & services suited to their needs, all FIs shall preferably place women champions at all customer touch points, such as branches, call centers and alternate delivery channels etc.
4.2. Women Champions Targets
4.2.1. FIs must ensure that at least 75% of touch points should have women champions within three years of the issuance of this circular, as per timelines stipulated below:
Timelines
Targeted Ratio of Touch Points with Women Champions
June 2022
15%
December 2022
30%
June 2023
45%
December 2023
60%
June 2024
75%
4.2.2. FIs may consider their existing male /female / transgender staff members for being assigned the role of Women’s Champion, provided that the resource has undergone gender sensitivity training, is well versed in the bank’s financial products for women, and can share details of current SBP/ Government schemes for women.
4.2.3. The women champions will serve as a central point of contact for women customers to provide information about FIs’ financial products & services, non-financial advisory services, complaint redressal facilitation and share the details of current SBP/ Government schemes for women.
5. Robust Collection of Gender-Disaggregated Data and its Reporting Framework
Absence of gender-disaggregated data can create a mismatch between perceived barriers to women’s financial inclusion and policy interventions to address these constraints. Therefore:
5.2.1. FIs shall immediately make necessary arrangements to collect reliable gender-disaggregated data, to accurately reflect the uptake and usage of products & services by men, women and transgender, at-least in terms of bank accounts, deposits, financing, payments, etc. as per Annexure II attached.
5.2.2. FIs will submit the gender-disaggregated data to SBP on periodic basis in the prescribed areas as per the attached Annexure II.
5.2.3. FIs will share regular progress with SBP against the headline targets and instructions/measures as laid down in this circular and Banking on Equality Policy.
All FIs are advised to meticulously comply with the above instructions in true letter & spirit and submit a comprehensive compliance/progress report to SBP on quarterly basis. Further, all FIs must make necessary arrangements, preparations, allowances in budgets and infrastructure, for implementation of Banking on Equality Policy within three months of issuance of this circular.
