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Category: Money & Banking

Money and banking drive economic activity by facilitating transactions, savings, and investments. Banks manage financial resources, offer credit, and regulate money supply, ensuring stability and growth in Pakistan’s financial sector.

  • Rupee gains 10 paisas against dollar on inflows

    Rupee gains 10 paisas against dollar on inflows

    KARACHI: The Pak Rupee gained 10 paisas against dollar on Tuesday owing to inflows and lackluster demand for import payment.

    The rupee ended Rs154.41 to the dollar from previous day’s closing of Rs154.51 in interbank foreign exchange market.

    Currency dealers said that the market witnessed inflows under the heads of workers’ remittances and export receipts. On the other hand due to coronavirus threat the importers are reluctant to purchase dollars for Chinese imports.

    The foreign currency market was initiated in the range of Rs154.51 and Rs154.56. The market recorded day high of Rs154.51 and low of Rs154.41 and closed at the same level.

    The exchange rate in open market witnessed no change in the local currency. The buying and selling of the dollar was recorded at Rs154.30/Rs154.60, the same previous day’s closing, in cash ready market.

  • MCB Bank declares 14% growth in annual net profit

    MCB Bank declares 14% growth in annual net profit

    KARACHI: MCB Bank Limited has declared 14 percent growth in annual profit for calendar year 2019 owing to significant increase in net mark-up income.

    According to financial results for calendar year 2019 released on Tuesday, the bank declared Rs24 billion after tax profit as compared with Rs21 billion profit in the preceding year.

    The bank also announced Rs20.23 as earning per share for the year as compared with EPS of 18.02 declared in the last year.

    The net interest income of the bank registered 23 percent increase to Rs56.61 billion in calendar year 2019 as compared with Rs46 billion in the preceding year.

    However, total non-markup income slightly fell to Rs16.6 billion in 2019 as compared with Rs17.19 billion in the last year.

    Therefore, the total income of the bank rose to Rs76.29 billion in 2019 as compared with Rs63.2 billion in the preceding year.

    Operating expenses of the bank were remained flat at Rs32.6 billion in 2019 as compared with Rs32.1 billion in preceding year.

    The bank contributed income tax to the tune of Rs16.12 billion in the calendar year 2019 as compared with Rs10.7 billion in the preceding year, posting a significant increase of 51 percent.

  • Bank holiday announced on Kashmir Day

    Bank holiday announced on Kashmir Day

    KARACHI, February 4, 2020 – In a significant move reflecting solidarity with Kashmiris, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has declared a holiday on February 5, 2020, on the occasion of Kashmir Day.

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  • SBP takes steps to reduce cheque clearance time

    SBP takes steps to reduce cheque clearance time

    KARACHI: Addressing another gap in cheque clearing whereby it took weeks to clear cheques in far flung areas of the country, SBP has allowed the use of Pakistan Real Time Interbank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM) for the settlement of cheques, said a statement on Monday.

    This is expected to decrease the processing time for clearing of payment instruments in areas that are not easily accessible. This will also help the financial institutions in far flung areas to leverage digital channels for their clearing and settlement obligations, the SBP added.

    To further improve the digital payment services landscape in the country and promote financial inclusion, SBP has issued instructions to the banking industry for improving the acceptance of payment cards in the country.

    Specifically, SBP has taken three steps: one, the banks are now bound to offer the domestic payment scheme card, PayPak, to the customers as a first priority, whereas cards of international payment schemes like Visa, MasterCard and Union Pay may be issued on the request of the customer.

    Two, the merchant discount rate (MDR) i.e. the fee charged by banks to the merchants, will now be in the range of 1.5 to 2.5 percent. Earlier banks were allowed to charge any fee to the merchants.

    Three, the distribution of revenues generated from a merchant among the players including card issuer, card machine deploying entity and the payment scheme company, has also been rationalised to keep the incentives equitable among all the players.

    These measures are expected to increase payment card acceptance access points in the country and in turn will also help in digitizing the economy and promoting financial inclusion.

    It may be recalled that SBP launched the National Payment Systems Strategy in November 2019 and has since taken a number of steps to promote digitization of payment transactions in the country.

  • Rupee eases by two paisas against dollar

    Rupee eases by two paisas against dollar

    Karachi – The Pakistani Rupee experienced a marginal decline of two paisas against the US Dollar on Monday, settling at Rs154.51 in the interbank foreign exchange market.

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  • Rupee eases by two paisas ahead weekly holidays

    Rupee eases by two paisas ahead weekly holidays

    KARACHI: The Pak Rupee eased by two paisas against dollar on Friday owing to demand of the foreign currency ahead of two weekly holidays.

    The rupee ended Rs154.49 to the dollar from last day’s closing of Rs154.47 in interbank foreign exchange market.

    Currency dealers said that the market was remained flat. However, advance buying was witnessed ahead of to two weekly holidays.

    The foreign currency market was initiated at the range between Rs154.44 and Rs154.47. The market recorded day high of Rs154.49 and low of Rs154.47 and closed at Rs154.49.

    The exchange rate in open market however witnessed significant gain in local currency value.

    The buying and selling of the dollar was recorded at Rs154.30/Rs154.60 from previous day’s closing of Rs154.50/Rs154.80 in cash ready market.

  • SBP fixes merchant discount rate up to 2.5% on digital payments

    SBP fixes merchant discount rate up to 2.5% on digital payments

    KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday announced that Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) for Point of Sale (POS) acquiring Pakistan shall be within the range of 1.5%-2.5% for both existing and new merchants.

    The following merchant categories shall be exempt from this requirement:

    Government and Utilities

    MCC 9211: Court Costs, Including Alimony and Child Support

    MCC 9222: Fines

    MCC 9223: Bail and Bond Payments

    MCC 9311: Tax Payments

    MCC 9399: Government Services (Not Elsewhere Classified)

    MCC 4900: Utilities -Electric, Gas, Water and Sanitary

    Education

    MCC 8211: Elementary and Secondary Schools

    MCC 8220; Colleges, Universities, Professional Schools and Junior Colleges

    MCC 8241: Correspondence Schools

    MCC 8244: Business and Secretarial Schools

    MCC 8249: Vocational and Trade Schools

    MCC 8299: Schools and Educational Services (Not Elsewhere Classified)

    Fuel

    MCC 5541: Service Stations

    MCC 5542: Automated Fuel Dispensers

    MCC5172: Petrolium and Petroleum Products

    MCC 5983: Fuel -Fuel Oil, Wood, Coal, Liquefied Petroleum

    The SBP said that the Interchange Reimbursement Fee (IRF) for debit and prepaid cards issued in Pakistan used on domestic POS terminals shall be capped at 0.5 percent.

    The central bank said that during the past few years, there has been considerable growth in the digital payment infrastructure of the country, especially in the number of debit cards being issued by the banks to their customers.

    Although, the Point of Sale (POS) infrastructure has also grown during the past few years, its growth has largely remained restricted to high value merchants in big cities.

    Some of the key challenges being faced by the POS acquiring industry in Pakistan include high Interchange Reimbursement Fee (IRF), lower than cost Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) to onboard high value merchants and less interest by banks in offering low cost domestic payment cards to their customers.

    The SBP said that the card issuers shall offer SBP approved Domestic Payment Scheme (DPS) Card as the default card at the time of issuance or renewal of debit cards.

    Accordingly card requesting customers shall be offered the following options in order of priority:

    Either an exclusive DPS card or a DPS card co-badged with an International Payment Scheme (IPS)

    An exclusive IPS card upon written request of the customer

    The central bank said that the instructions shall come into effect from April 01, 2020.

  • Rupee gains 10 paisas on improved dollar supply

    Rupee gains 10 paisas on improved dollar supply

    The Pakistani rupee gained 10 paisas against the US dollar in the interbank foreign exchange market on Thursday, closing at Rs154.47 compared to the previous day’s closing of Rs154.57, according to currency dealers.

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  • Rupee ends unchanged for third straight day

    Rupee ends unchanged for third straight day

    KARACHI: The Pak Rupee ended remained unchanged for third consecutive day against the dollar on Wednesday owing to lackluster trading activities.

    The rupee ended Rs154.57 to the dollar, same previous day’s level, in interbank foreign exchange market.

    Currency dealers said that the rupee had maintained the levels as importers and corporate buyers were cautious. They said that due to coronavirus outbreak in China the international oil prices had fallen.

    Besides, the health alerts issued by the government authorities due to coronavirus also prevented fresh orders to import Chinese goods.

    The foreign currency market was initiated in the range of Rs154.55 and Rs154.60. The market recorded day high of Rs154.59 and low of Rs154.55 and closed at Rs154.57.

    The exchange rate in open market was also remained unchanged. The buying and selling of the dollar was traded at Rs154.50/Rs154.80, the same previous day’s level, in cash ready market.