KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has started implementing Treasury Single Account (TSA) and directed all banks to close all accounts related to government authorities.
In a communication issued on Wednesday, the SBP said that the Finance Division, Government of Pakistan (GoP) vide their letter F.No.1(1)/S.O(TSA)/2020 dated August 19, 2020 has directed all Federal Government Ministries, Divisions, Attached Departments and Subordinate Offices (MDAS) to close their banks accounts with the commercial banks/financial institutions and transfer the balance funds to the Federal Government’s Central Account No.I (non-food) with SBP.
The banks have been directed that their branches would receive the ”Account Closure Request” from the respective authorized signatories on the specified format issued by Finance Division (annexure B of aforesaid letter) for closure of such bank accounts and transfer of balances therein to SBP.
In this regard, following instructions are issued to banks for meticulous compliance:
a. In line with the instructions of authorized signatories, the banks shall close all such accounts and transfer their balances to SBP for onward credit to the Federal Government’s Central Account No.I (non-food).
b. In order to ensure closure of all the accounts and transfer of their balances to SBP through a standardized procedure, banks are hereby advised to develop their internal applications and processes to keep track of the i). Receipt of directives by the authorized signatories; ii). Closure of accounts by banks’ branches and transfer of available balances to their centralized treasury and iii). Transfer of the consolidated amount by the centralized treasury to the SBP through RTGS.
c. Upon receipt of account closure request, the respective branches will initiate the closure of accounts and transfer the available balances to their centralized treasuries within seven (07) days through their internal application referred in (b) above.
d. The respective branches shall convey the following details to their centralized treasuries, through standardized internal application referred in (b) above.
1. Names of Administrative/controlling ministries
2. Names of Government Departments/Institutions
3. Account Titles
4. IBANs
5. Balances Transferred
6. Branch Code
e. The centralized treasury of each bank shall transfer the aggregate amount of deposits surrendered by its branches on daily basis to SBP through RTGS Message Type (MT-202) for onward credit to the Federal Government’s Central Account No.I (non-food). The MT-102 shall invariably mention reference phrase “Government Deposit Transferred to Central Account-I (non-food)”.
f. The banks’ centralized treasuries shall forward the details of such closed accounts to SBP Banking Services Corporation (BSC) Karachi Office as per Annexure I.
