KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday directed banks to take measures to facilitate donations for Prime Minister’s COVID-19 Pandemic Relief Fund 2020.
The SBP previously issued guidelines for the fund through Circular No. 02 dated April 02, 2020.
The SBP said that with a view to facilitate the donors in making donations/ contributions to the fund, banks are advised to take necessary steps as under:
A. Pre-configured Account Details of the Fund
The SBP said currently, the donors using digital platforms including internet/mobile banking and ATMs have to follow a number of steps including selection of Fund’s destination bank and population of account details. In order to reduce the turnaround time for donors in making donations/contributions to the Fund; banks are advised to make “PM COVID-19 Relief Fund” a predefined account/icon enabling the donors to just select the account icon and key-in the amount of donation. This is necessary to ensure donors’ convenience in making the donations.
B. Crossed Cheques Drop Box Facility
As already advised vide our above referred Circular, all banks shall make available at their selected branches, the drop box facility enabling the donors to drop crossed cheques in the name of the Fund in their respective bank’s drop boxes.
SBP said that the banks shall, accordingly debit the customer’s account and transfer the proceeds to the Fund’s account at National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) through RTGS.
As per feedback received from stakeholders, drop box facility for donations to the Fund has not been made fully operational by all banks.
The banks are advised to ensure that the Drop Box facility is fully operational and prominent notices or banners are placed in all such branches that the donors can drop the crossed cheques in the name of the Fund.
The compliance heads of all the banks shall ensure the same and confirm to SBP at [email protected] within a week that the facility is fully operational and in line with SBP directives.
C. Settlement of Donations Made through SMS on the Short Code
The SBP said as the donors can also donate to the Fund by sending an SMS on the Short Code ‘6677’; the banks acting as a banker to telecom companies shall facilitate the Telcos in transmitting the funds so collected to the PM Fund account with NBP on daily basis. The 2 | P a g e
Telcos shall advise their respective banks at 3:30 p.m. daily to debit their account with the amount of collections made by the Telco through the short code ‘6677’ during the last working day and transfer the same to the PM Fund.
The Telco’s bank shall accordingly debit the telco’s account and send the same to the Fund account with the name of ‘Telco-SMS Donations’ as the donor.
D. SMS to Customer:
In order to inform their customers about the “PM COVID-19 Relief Fund” and different mechanisms/channels of making the donation, the bank shall send the following SMS message to all their customers:
“Dear Customer, please donate generously to the “PM COVID-19 Relief Fund” through i) IBFT via internet banking or ATMS, ii) Mobile Banking; iii) Crossed Cheques in the name of the Fund in our Drop boxes; iv) cash deposits at our branches, and v) Debit/Credit Cards @ https://covid.ophrd.gov.pk”.
