The rupee gained 57 paisas to close at Rs169.97 against the dollar from previous day’s closing of Rs170.54 in the interbank foreign exchange market.
The local currency is making a continuous recovery against the greenback since falling to historic low at Rs175.27 on October 26, 2021.
The appreciation in the local unit has been seen soon after an announcement by the Saudi government to support Pakistan in managing balance of payment.
Last week Saudi Arabia announced an additional support of $3 billion to Pakistan for building its foreign exchange reserves. The additional financial support is besides a $1.2 billion dollars deferred oil facility to Pakistan to help its balance of payment issues, an official statement said.
Besides, the latest number of exports also improved the sentiments in the foreign exchange market.
The exports of the country surged by 25 per cent to $9.44 billion during July – October 2021 as compared with $7.57 billion in the corresponding period of the last year.
“Building further on its vision to facilitate taxpayers through automation, digitization, and minimization of human interaction with taxpayers, the FBR is all set to launch Single Sales Tax Portal. Prime Minister is likely to unveil the mega national initiative, later this month,” it said.
This landmark initiative has been made possible after thorough discussions with the provincial revenue authorities of Punjab, Sindh, KPK, Baluchistan, and AJK.
This facility will enable taxpayers to file single monthly Sales Tax returns instead of multiple returns (6 in the past) on different portals; thereby, significantly reducing the time and cost of compliance, and thus achieving maximum efficiency.
The system would be intelligent enough to sift and collect revenues from a single taxpayer and distribute the same among multiple revenue agencies.
This unique project would also help in resolving the long outstanding issues of input tax adjustment among relevant stakeholders. With the proposed launch of Single Sales Tax Portal later this month, the existing cumbersome and tedious processes would be replaced with an efficient & automated system of tax adjustments, with minimum human involvement.
The Portal would also be beneficial for tax collectors in having a 360-degrees view of taxpayers’ business activities across the country in order to maximize revenue potential and tax compliance.
By all standards, this is a giant leap forward in taxpayers’ facilitation and at the same time, a significant step in harmonization of taxes between federal and provincial governments.
The digital mode of payment has been made mandatory for the corporate sector, which was to be implemented from November 01, 2021.
The FBR issued Circular No. 09 of 2021-22 on Monday to allow an extension in the deadline for implementation of digital mode of payment up to November 30, 2021.
The FBR in its explanation through Circular No. 07 dated September 23, 2021 said: to improve documentation, a new clause (la) has been inserted in section 21 of the Ordinance.
Previously payments under a single head account exceeding two hundred and fifty thousand rupees, made by any taxpayer were required to be made through crossed cheque or crossed baking instruments including digital payments.
“Through this amendment, payments made by a company under a single head of account exceeding two hundred and fifty thousand rupees other than by digital means from business bank account of the taxpayer notified to the Commissioner under section 114A of the Ordinance shall not be admissible as deductions.”
However, certain expenditures on account of utility bills, freight charges, travel fare, and payment of taxes and fines would continue to be admissible even though paid in cash or via traditional banking instruments.
The purpose behind this legislative enactment is to encourage digital payments and discourage traditional mode of transactions by the corporate sector in the first phase.
However, owing to lack of total digital readiness by some corporate taxpayers, the corporate taxpayers are allowed to switch to this mode w.e.f. 01.11.2021.
In the intervening period they may use digital payments or continue with the existing procedure of making payments by a crossed cheque drawn on a bank or by crossed bank draft or crossed pay order or any other crossed banking instrument showing transfer of amount from the business bank account of the taxpayer.
Furthermore, any salary paid or payable exceeding twenty five thousand rupees per month has to be made through cross cheque or direct transfer of funds to the employee’s bank account under clause (m) of section 21 of the Ordinance. In order to bring this provision in conformity with newly inserted clause (la) ibid, in case of payments against salary in excess of twenty five thousand rupees per month, the mode of digital payment has been added to the available modes referred to above.
The Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) last week in a letter to the FBR chairman stated that the implementation of digital payment was not practical at the moment.
The PTBA made the following submissions to substantiate its claim:
(i) It is impossible to make payment to goods carriage/transport sector by the digital means, which will create complete unrest in the goods carriage and transport sector.
(ii) Presently, port terminal charges, wharfage charges, charges for clearance of delivery orders are paid in advance through crossed cheques or payorders. It will not be out of place to mention here that the port terminal operators and shipping lines, are unaware and are not ready for implementation of the ‘digital mode of payment.’
(iii) It is routine business practice that advance against delivery of goods, the buyer submits its payment by way of post-dated cheques, which normally accepted by the other party and inherently a secured way of making payment. We are afraid that this law of ‘digital mode of payment’ is surely going to hamper the business activities, as it does not cater the situation and solution of such transactions.
(iv) The similar issues are likely to arise and are to be faced by the companies for making payments to the growers of various agricultural crops such as fruits, sugarcane, rice, cotton, wheat, etc.
(v) The various banks have fixed their own limitation on the quantity of making digital / online payments in a day and have also fixed the threshold of the amount and they do not allow to exceed the threshold limit fixed by them. In our view, this also needs a proper campaign without which the implementation of the law is not possible.
(vi) The digital mode of payment is also impractical and is likely to affect the business transaction in the cases where petty cash payments, in aggregate exceed millions of rupees, which cannot be made digitally.
(vii) It will not be out of place to mention that online transactions are still considered as unsecured mode, due to various type online frauds and hacking of software.
Furthermore, a cyber attack on Pakistan’s leading bank last Friday also made the implementation in jeopardy. The PTBA has also pointed its concerns about the cyber security issue.
KARACHI: Xiaomi, a global consumer electronics and smartphone giant, has decided to manufacture mobile phones in Pakistan. In this connection, Xiaomi has joined hands with Select Technologies (Pvt) Limited (SELECT), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Air Link Communication Limited (AIRLINK), as its manufacturing partner for Xiaomi mobile phones in Pakistan.
“We are targeting a production of initially around 2.5 – 3 million handsets annually subject to smooth supply chain which is expected to add approximately $450 million annually in top line revenue numbers and will have a material incremental impact on the EPS [earnings per share] of the company other than the normal course of business,” said a statement issued by Air Link Communication Limited on Monday.
According to the company, the production facility will be located adjacent to the AIRLINK’s existing state of the art mobile manufacturing facility at Quaid-e-Azam Industrial Estate, Kot Lakhpat, Lahore.
The production facility will facility is anticipated to be operational within the month of January 2022.
“… SELECT will be the manufacturing partner whereas AIRLINK will continue to be one of the largest distributors of Xiaomi phones in Pakistan,” the company added.
Courtesy the manufacturing of Xiaomi phones by SELECT, AIRLINK expects to substantially increase its distribution and retail business of Xiaomi phones in Pakistan.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has announced income tax exemption on the import of drones donated by the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
KARACHI: The e-banking transactions recorded a significant increase during the fiscal year 2020/2021 as transactions worth Rs86.48 trillion were recorded through these channels.
According to a report recently issued by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), during 2020/2021, about 1.2 billion transactions of valuing Rs86.5 trillion were processed through retail e-banking channels.
These transactions showed growth of 30.6 per cent and 31.1 per cent in volume and value of transactions, respectively when compared with 905.9 million and Rs65.98 trillion during the last fiscal year.
In total e-banking transactions, Real-Time Online Branches (RTOBs) transactions accounted for the largest share of 77.8 per cent in value of transactions with a volume share of 15.8 per cent whereas ATMs have the largest share of 50.6 per cent in volume of transactions with a value share of 9.3 per cent only.
RTOB Transactions
RTOB channel provides online banking facility to all its customers across the whole branch network of the same bank. During the year under review, this channel processed 186.6 million transactions of Rs 67.3 trillion. These transactions depicted YoY growth of 7.4 per cent and 23.7 per cent in volume and value of transactions respectively.
During FY21, in terms of the number of transactions, cash deposit transactions have the highest share of 46.6 per cent (86.9 million) in total RTOB transactions volume-wise whereas intra-bank funds transfer transactions to other branches have the highest share of 70.0 per cent (Rs 47.1 trillion) in terms of the value of total RTOB transactions.
ATM Transactions
Pakistan is one of those countries where cash is still the dominant mode of making payments and performing transactions. It is evident from a significant increase in ATM transactions that ATMs are still the most widely used payment channel across the country, particularly for cash withdrawal transactions.
As on end June 2021, the total number of ATMs was 16,355 in the country. This accounts for approximately 7.7 ATMs touchpoints for every 100,000 people. During FY21, ATMs processed 598.7 million transactions with a value of Rs 8.1 trillion. It amounts to a YoY change of 16.9 per cent by volume and 25.6 per cent by value. During the year under review, the average size of ATM transactions was approximately Rs 13,489 per ATM transaction and 36,607 transactions were processed per ATM, compared with the average size of Rs 12,555 per ATM transaction and 32,801 transactions processed per ATM last year.
Further, the ratio of On-Us versus Off-Us Cash withdrawal was approximately 60:40 by volume and 67:33 by value which shows that customers mostly prefer to withdraw cash from their own bank’s ATMs.
Internet Banking Transactions
Banks are offering a variety of financial services through Internet Banking (IB) like Intra-bank & Interbank Fund transfer, scheduled fund transfers, Utility Bills Payments, Mobile Airtime top-ups, Intra-bank credit card payments, school fee payments, etc.
As on end June 2021, 27 banks were offering Internet Banking and there were 5.2 million registered Internet Banking Users with these banks. During the year FY21, this channel processed 93.4 million transactions amounting to Rs 5.7 trillion.
These transactions showed a YoY growth of 65.1 per cent and 91.7 per cent by volume and value respectively. In the total Internet Banking transactions, the share of Intra-Bank Funds transfer transactions is 35.0 per cent (32.7 million) and 36.8 per cent (Rs 2,084.2 billion) in volume and value of transactions respectively whereas the share of Inter-Bank Funds transfer transactions in volume and value of transactions is 41.5 per cent (38.8 million) and 43.1 per cent (Rs 2440.3 billion) respectively.
Utility Bills Payments contributed 18.1 per cent (16.9 million) in volume and 8.2 per cent (Rs 464.5 billion) in value of transactions and the residuals share is contributed by other miscellaneous payments including merchant payments, mutual funds payments, zakat, charities, etc. The substantial growth witnessed during the last few years in the Internet Banking channel is quite encouraging.
The push received from COVID-19 last year also resulted in remarkable growth in internet banking transactions in FY21.
Mobile Banking Transactions
Mobile Phone/App-based Banking is being offered by 27 Banks/ MFBs to 10.8 million registered users as of June 2021. This Channel processed 193.4 million transactions worth Rs 4.9 trillion during FY21 showing a YoY growth of more than double the volume and value of transactions, more precisely, it registered a YoY growth of 133.6 per cent and 178.7 per cent in volume and value of transactions respectively.
In the last 5 years, significant progress has been observed in the usage of Internet Banking and Mobile Banking channels showing annualized transaction growth of 38.3 per cent and 106.1 per cent respectively.
Intra-bank and Inter-bank fund transfers were the main contributors in total Mobile Phone Banking transactions. Intra-bank fund transfers contributed 20.1 per cent (38.9 million) transactions by volume and 34.6 per cent (Rs 1,702.8 billion) transactions by value while Interbank fund transfers contributed 44.8 per cent (86.6 million) transactions by volume and 51.2 per cent (Rs 2,516.0 billion) transactions by value.
Utility Bills Payments had the volume of 31.1 per cent (60.1 million) transactions and 2.2 per cent (Rs 106.2 billion) transactions by value within overall Mobile Banking volume and value of transactions respectively and insignificant residual share is contributed by miscellaneous payments using Mobile Phone Apps.
The channel depicted a growing trend of transactions. During the year, FY21, it showed a substantial growth compared to the previous years, as is evident from the trend shown in figure 2.5 above.
It is quite evident that Mobile Banking has been the preferred source of conducting transactions and making payments by the consumers, just because of the fact that the channel has observed more than double increase in terms of both volume and value of transactions during the year under review.
Call Center/ IVR Banking Transactions
During the year FY21, Call Centers/ IVR Banking Channel processed 0.3 million transactions amounting to Rs 8.1 billion. This channel facilitates both Intra and Inter-Bank Funds transfers. Mostly Banks/MFBs high valued customers are also allowed to use this channel for Utilities Bill Payments. As on the end-June 2021, there were 33.4 million Call Centers/IVR Banking Channel registered users.
Digital Adaption by Merchants
Despite the economic downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is quite promising that e-commerce transactions during recent years have seen continuous growth, leading to the belief that the general consumers are realizing the benefits of paying through cards instead of paying through cash, which includes transparency in payments, no hassle of carrying change, paying any amount directly from the account, and avoiding unnecessary carrying of cash at all times.
Card Present – POS Transactions
In Pakistan 5 banks are in the business of open-loop POS acquiring whereas, 4 banks are providing closed-loop services on POS.
The turnover of 88.8 million POS transactions valuing Rs 453.1 billion was recorded in FY21 as compared to 70.3 million transactions valuing Rs 364.2 billion in FY20, showing a YoY growth of 26.3 per cent by volume and 24.4 per cent by value of transactions.
POS transactions have a 7.5 per cent share in the total volume of transactions with a value share of 0.5 per cent showing low uptake of merchant onboarding and insignificant usage of debit cards for retail transactions. The increase in POS transactions can be attributed to the reopening of shops and markets as the lockdown was gradually lifted on an on-and-off basis.
Card-not-Present – e-Commerce
There were 3,003 locally registered e-Commerce Merchants having their merchant accounts in 6 banks as of end-June 2021 compared to 1,707 Merchants last year, showing significant growth of 75.9 per cent boarding of e-Commerce merchants in the country.
In Pakistan, International Payment Gateway Services (IPGs) are being provided by 4 banks, whereas 2 microfinance banks were also working as merchant aggregators and are providing e-commerce gateway to their clients while leveraging on 4 IPGs in Pakistan. Consumers carried out 21.9 million online transactions worth Rs 60.6 billion on these locally registered e-Commerce Merchants during the year FY21 through cards. These transactions showed significant YoY growth of 114.8 per cent and 74.1 per cent by volume and value of transactions respectively.
In addition to the above, domestically issued Debit, Credit, and Pre-paid cards collectively processed 33.6 million transactions of Rs 124.6 billion on local and international e-commerce merchants. Debit cards took the lead with the highest share of transactions i.e., 67.0 per cent (22.5 million) in volume; when it comes to value, credit cards registered the highest share with 49.8 per cent (Rs 62.0 billion).
It is worth mentioning that the number of transactions per debit card issued (0.75 transactions) is very less when compared with e-commerce transactions processed per credit card issued (6.4 transactions), leaning to infer that credit cards still remain the preferred instrument to perform e-commerce transactions.
Payment Cards Transactions
In Pakistan, payment cards can be categorized as Credit, Debit, Proprietary ATM, Social Welfare, and Pre-Paid Cards. As on end-June 2021, there were 45.9 million total cards in circulation. Collectively, these cards processed 708.7 million transactions amounting to Rs 8.4 trillion.
Credit Cards
As on end-June 2021, the number of reported Credit Cards in circulation is 1.7 million. These cards processed 47.4 million transactions of value Rs 270.1 billion during the year FY21. The total volume of Credit Card transactions has 76.2 per cent share on POS transactions and 23.1 per cent share in e-Commerce transactions whereas in terms of value, these transactions have 75.8 per cent share of usages on POS, 23.1 per cent share of usage for e-Commerce and the residual share of transactions pertains to ATMs.
The average transactions size of Credit Cards is Rs 5,699 (down from Rs 5,770 last year) whereas, on average, each credit card conducted 28 transactions (up from 25 transactions last year).
Debit Cards
The number of debit cards at the end of FY 2021 has been 29.8 million, observing a YOY growth of 11.8 per cent, whereas exhibiting annualized growth of 13.8 per cent during the last 4 years. It is point worthy to note that the number of debit cards increased mainly due to the mandate given by SBP to issue more secure Europay Master Visa (EMV) Chip and PIN Compliant cards, thus adding more security without compromising customer experience.
During the year under review, these debit cards processed 634.1 million transactions worth Rs 7.9 trillion, showing a YoY growth of 24.0 per cent by volume and 30.1 per cent by value of transactions. In the total volume of transactions processed by Debit Cards, ATMs transactions have 86.3 per cent share with a value share of 95.8 per cent whereas POS transactions have a 10.2 per cent share in volume and 3.4 per cent share in the value of transactions. The residual share of Debit Cards is contributed by e-Commerce transactions for online purchases of the Card Not Present (CNP) environment. The average transactions size by Debit Cards is Rs 12,395 whereas 21 transactions on average were processed by a single card.
Proprietary ATMs only Cards
Proprietary ATMs only cards are issued by 12 banks for cash withdrawals on ATMs. As on end-June 2021, there were 5.7 million ATMs only cards in circulation and these cards processed 25.1 million transactions worth Rs 278.1 billion.
These transactions showed a YoY decline of 45.3 per cent and 44.5 per cent by volume and value of transactions respectively, mainly due to the fact that the banks are in the continuous process of migrating their existing ATM-only card portfolio towards EMV Chip and PIN cards.
Social Welfare Cards
Social welfare cards are issued by the Government of Pakistan or provisional governments to support needy and disaster-affected people. As on end-June 2021, there were 8.4 million Social Welfare cards in circulation. During the year FY21, these cards processed 1.5 million transactions worth Rs 5.6 billion.
Prepaid Cards
Prepaid cards are being issued by a few banks in Pakistan in order to ensure that customers can enjoy flexibility while paying at merchant locations or online e-commerce portals. As on end-June 2021, there were 0.13 million cards in circulation. These cards processed 0.6 million transactions worth Rs 2.3 billion during the year FY21.
With the growth of digital access points, the associated risks are also evolving. SBP has been cognizant of the inherent risks in digital payments, therefore, it has been strengthening the oversight functions to ensure the security of digital payment systems and consumer protection.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has reported a significant achievement in revenue collection for the month of October 2021, surpassing the figures from the same period last year.
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is all set to apply a digital mode of payment from November 01, 2021, for corporate entities as one of the largest banks in the country reported a cyber security incident.
The digital mode of payment has been made mandatory from November 01, 2021. The FBR has already made necessary amendments to relevant tax laws to implement the digital payment system.
The new provision of law was promulgated through Tax Laws (Third Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, where a new sub-section (la) was inserted in Section 21 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
“The bank has not observed any data breach or financial loss. No other bank has reported any such incidence,” the central bank said. The SBP added that it was monitoring the situation closely to ensure safety and soundness of banking system.
Interestingly, a day earlier, the apex tax bar of the country Pakistan Tax Bar Association (PTBA) in a letter to FBR chairman mentioned about the cyber security issues while implementing the mandatory digital mode of payment.
“It will not be out of place to mention that online transactions are still considered as unsecured mode, due to various type online frauds and hacking of software,” according to the PTBA’s letter.
The apex tax bar urged the tax authorities to defer the condition as the implementation was not practical at present.
“The condition for allowable expenditure through digital mean is a contradiction with the other modes of payment through banking channels, which is historically remained in practice and accepted under the provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and this provision of law is incorporated without taking the stakeholders into confidence and it is not practically possible for many business houses,” the PTBA said.
KARACHI: The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Saturday announced to implement the previous trading system KATS after difficulties surfaced in running the new trading system (NTS).
The digital mode of payment has been made mandatory from November 01, 2021. The FBR has already made necessary amendments to relevant tax laws to implement the digital payment system.
The PTBA in its letter to FBR chairman Dr. Muhammad Ashfaq on Friday, October 29, 2021, stated that the new provision of law was promulgated through Tax Laws (Third Amendment) Ordinance, 2021, where a new sub-section (la) was inserted in Section 21 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
“The condition for allowable expenditure through digital mean is a contradiction with the other modes of payment through banking channels, which is historically remained in practice and accepted under the provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 and this provision of law is incorporated without taking the stakeholders into confidence and it is not practically possible for many business houses,” the PTBA said.
The apex tax bar pointed out the following reasons that will make the new provision impractical:
(i) It is impossible to make payment to goods carriage/transport sector by the digital means, which will create complete unrest in the goods carriage and transport sector.
(ii) Presently, port terminal charges, wharfage charges, charges for clearance of delivery orders are paid in advance through crossed cheques or payorders. It will not be out of place to mention here that the port terminal operators and shipping lines, are unaware and are not ready for implementation of the ‘digital mode of payment.’
(iii) It is routine business practice that advance against delivery of goods, the buyer submits its payment by way of post-dated cheques, which normally accepted by the other party and inherently a secured way of making payment. We are afraid that this law of ‘digital mode of payment’ is surely going to hamper the business activities, as it does not cater the situation and solution of such transactions.
(iv) The similar issues are likely to arise and are to be faced by the companies for making payments to the growers of various agricultural crops such as fruits, sugarcane, rice, cotton, wheat, etc.
(v) The various banks have fixed their own limitation on the quantity of making digital / online payments in a day and have also fixed the threshold of the amount and they do not allow to exceed the threshold limit fixed by them. In our view, this also needs a proper campaign without which the implementation of the law is not possible.
(vi) The digital mode of payment is also impractical and is likely to affect the business transaction in the cases where petty cash payments, in aggregate exceed millions of rupees, which cannot be made digitally.
(vii) It will not be out of place to mention that online transactions are still considered as unsecured mode, due to various type online frauds and hacking of software.
The PTBA said that in the presence of the conventional banking transactions, the move is likely to create lots of troubles for the corporate sector.
“It is therefore, suggested that the mandatory condition of digital mode of payment for companies should be allowed along with other conventional modes of payment for at least one year and time limit for updation of business bank accounts under Section 114 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 may be extended till June 30, 2022 for the smooth running of businesses.
