KARACHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday thanked Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman for supporting Pakistan with $3 billion as deposit in Pakistan’s central bank and financing refined petroleum product with $1.2 billion.
The prime minister said in a tweet. “KSA has always been there for Pak in our difficult times including now when world confronts rising commodity prices.”
On the other hand the dollar retreated in early trade in interbank foreign exchange market.
The dollar declined by 92 paisas in early trade. The dollar was being traded at Rs174.35 from previous day’s closing of Rs175.27 in interbank foreign exchange market.
Saudi Arabia has 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.
According to the Saudi Press Agency – SPA, the Saudi Fund for Development in a “generous gesture” announced a deposit of $3 billion dollars with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to help the government support its foreign currency reserves and counter the impact of the Corona pandemic.
ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia has 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.
According to the Saudi Press Agency – SPA, the Saudi Fund for Development in a “generous gesture” announced a deposit of $3 billion dollars with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to help the government support its foreign currency reserves and counter the impact of the Corona pandemic.
The SPA reported that the deposit was in addition, to an oil deferred payment facility of $1.2 billion dollars for petroleum products, during the year.
The SPA said that the gesture reflected the Saudi Kingdom’s continued position in supporting the economy of Pakistan.
The announcement would help ease pressure on Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves, due to the recent sharp hike in global commodity prices.
In a late-night development Information Minister Ch. Fawad Hussain shared the major development on his Twitter handle, a day after the return of Prime Minister Imran Khan from a three-day visit to the Kingdom to attend the Middle East Green Initiative of the Saudi Crown Prince.
“Breaking news Saudi Arabia announcement support Pakistan with $3 billion as deposit in Pakistan central bank and also financing refined petroleum product with 1. 2 billion us dollars during the year.”
Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin in a tweet early Wednesday said: “Yesterday evening the Finance Minister of Saudi Arabia informed me of the generous gesture of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to place $3 billion with SBP and a $1.2 billion deferred oil facility to help the balance of payment of Pakistan.”
“We thank the Crown Prince & the KSA for this kind gesture.”
Minister of Energy Hammad Azhar, who accompanied the Prime Minister on his visit to Saudi Arabia said the Saudi Development Fund has generously announced for Pakistan an oil deferred payments facility of $1.2 billion/annum and a $3 billion deposit with SBP.
“This will help ease pressures on our trade & forex accounts as a result of global commodities price surge,” he said in a message on Twitter.
Prize Bond, as the name suggests, are Bonds issued by a Government, which do not promise any interest, but award a prize, determined by a draw held at fixed date or regular intervals. Prize Bonds are investment and are bearer type of security available in different denominations.
The First Prize Bonds in the sub-continent were issued on sale in denominations of Rs. 10 and Rs. 100, by the undivided Indian Government on 15th January, 1944 and could be cashed on any date after 15th January, 1949. These were called “Five Year interest-free Bonds 1949”.
After the partition of sub-continent, Pakistan first issued the interest-free “National Prize Bonds” of Rs. 10 in October 1960, managed by the ‘Central Directorate of National Savings’ (CDNS). The Prize Bonds were launched by the then Minister, Gen. K.M. Shaikh, and the first Bond was also purchased by him. Later Rs. 5, 11, 50, 100, 500, 1000, 5000, 10000 & 25000 denomination Prize Bonds were issued.
The draw of each Prize Bond was held every three months, with the first draw held in January 1961. The traditional drum was used initially for the draw, but imported machines similar to slot machines were later used. The draws were supervised by draw committees, with the chairman being a senior Government officer, and members from the State Bank of Pakistan and Central Directoarte of National Savings (CDNS).
Rs. 200, 750, 1500, 7500, 15000, 25000 & 40000 denomination Bonds are currently in circulation.
“The business, industry and trade community of Pakistan demands a better, more competent and responsible leadership at the helm of the affairs at State Bank of Pakistan,” said Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo, President FPCCI while criticizing irresponsible and fictitious statement by the Governor SBP on deprecating value of Pakistani Rupee and how it is benefiting Pakistan.
FPCCI Chief said that there is no economic sense and justification in the statement that Pakistan has gained around $3 billion due to recent depreciation in Pak Rupee. He added that the ground realities are diametrically opposite than that of assertions by SBP Chief.
Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo emphasized that monetary policy should be devised in a manner to promote economic growth and bring stability in the economic indicators; however, monetary policy has failed to achieve any of the above.
Nasir Khan, VP FPCCI, has said that unrelentingly depreciating exchange rate is playing a havoc with Pakistani society and the economy. This is unsustainable and the Prime Minister should intervene – in the larger national interest – immediately to arrest the slide in the value of Pak Rupee.
Nasir Khan said that the government must address the domestic and imported inflation through its monetary and fiscal policies; instead of making lame excuses.
Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo said that hardly any justification exists in continuation of the present Governor SBP. In fact, ethically speaking, he should prefer to resign himself in view of totally indefensible policy structure given by SBP.
Mian Nasser Hyatt Maggo has also demanded a binding inquiry into the conduct of SBP in recommending sweeping tax concessions for non-resident companies to attract investments in government debt at very high rates to favor certain foreign commercial banks. The same conduct of Governor SBP is part of the history archives, when he was in Egypt.
KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has said that the digital payment continued upward trajectory during fiscal year 2020/2021.
The SBP on Friday released its Annual Payment Systems Review (PSR) for the fiscal year 2020-21, which shows strong growth in the space of digital financial transactions in the country.
According to the SBP, transactions processed through SBP’s large-value payments segment, known as Real-time Inter-Bank Settlement Mechanism (PRISM), recorded YoY growth of 60.0 per cent by number of transactions (volume) and 12.8 per cent by value.
Similarly, overall e-Banking transactions registered YoY growth of 31.1 per cent which highlights substantial increase in adaption of digital means for payments.
This growth was spurred by major uptake in mobile banking (29 per cent increase in the number of users, 133.6 per cent and 178.7 per cent increase in volume and value respectively) and internet banking (32 per cent increase in the number of users, 65.1 per cent and 91.7 per cent increase in volume and value respectively).
This promising growth was achieved on the back of 27 banks offering app-based banking along with other entities offering innovative payment solutions for accepting digital transactions.
During FY21, digital payments adoption for retail transactions continued to show an upward trend. Due to the active efforts of the SBP, the number of card accepting POS machines saw a growth of 47 per cent. Transactions processed through POS machines reached as high as 88.8 million amounting to PKR 453.1 billion, showing YoY growth of 26.3 per cent by volume and 24.4 per cent by value of transactions.
The same trend was reflected in e-commerce transactions as well. The number of e-commerce merchants reached 3,003 which shows double-digit growth of 76 per cent.
Consumers carried out 21.9 million online transactions worth Rs60.6 billion on these locally registered e-Commerce Merchants during the year FY21 which amounts to significant YoY growth of 114.8 per cent and 74.1 per cent by volume and value of transactions respectively. These trends point toward healthy growth in fostering a more digitally integrated economy.
Similarly, on the card issuance side, as on end-June 2021, there were 45.9 million total cards in circulation that mainly comprised of Debit cards (65.0 per cent), Social welfare cards (18.4 per cent), ATM only cards (12.6 per cent), Credit cards (3.7 per cent), and Prepaid cards (0.3 per cent).
Collectively, these cards processed 708.7 million transactions amounting to Rs8.4 trillion during FY2021. 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 and annualized growth of 13.8 per cent during the last 4 years. Transactions processed through ATMs also grew to 598.7 million with the total value of Rs8.1 trillion.
This amounts to growth of 16.9 per cent by volume and 25.6 per cent by value on YoY basis.
The country’s core payment systems infrastructure remained operationally resilient. All channels of payment systems showed significant growth. SBP expects that going forward, the momentum of growth across all key areas of the digital payments ecosystem will continue to strengthen.
Modernizing the country’s payment system and infrastructure is a key priority, for which SBP will continue to work on providing an enabling regulatory environment.
