KARACHI: The liquid foreign exchange reserves of the country slipped by $476 million to $23.55 billion by the week ended November 12, 2021, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Thursday.
The foreign exchange reserves of the country were at $24.026 billion by the week ended November 05, 2021.
The official reserves of the SBP also fell by $381 million to $16.945 billion by the week ended November 12, 2021, as compared with $17.326 billion a week ago.
The foreign exchange reserves maintained by commercial banks also declined by $95 million to $6.605 billion by the week ended November 12, 2021, as compared with $6.7 billion a week ago.
Karachi, November 18, 2021 – The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has released the official exchange rates for customers, effective as of November 18, 2021.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the monetary policy committee of SBP will convene on Friday, November 19, 2021 to announce the monetary policy for the next two months.
The analysts expect that SBP to remain hawkish, raising its policy rate for the second time since the beginning of the current fiscal year 2021/2022 and at a much higher magnitude of 100 basis points – the highest hike in almost 2.3 years – taking the total cumulative increase in FY22TD to 125bps. With this, the revised policy rate is expected at 8.25 per cent.
To recall, the SBP, continuing with its tightening policy, recently announced a 100bps hike in Cash Reserve Requirement too.
A shift towards ‘a more hawkish stance’ from the earlier ‘gradual and calibrated’ might be evident in this monetary policy meeting as inflation worries are rumbling more clearly than before.
Inflation in Pakistan has increased markedly with the resumption of economic activities – but as supply-side inflation has subsided, demand-side inflation has overshot.
Headline inflation initially remained low averaging at 8.7 per cent during the first four months of the fiscal year 2021/2022, but now with waning base effect, it has started accelerating, raising concerns.
Clearly, the inflationary pressures reflect the upside arising in global energy and commodity prices and moreover, do not look ready to subside anytime soon.
We have seen some of the central banks in the regional markets reacting as consumer prices are being pressured by global supply-chain disruptions and costlier energy and food supplies.
Domestically, there has been a positive development on the COVID front, in terms of reduced infections/deaths and faster vaccinations.
The overall improved healthcare conditions coupled with the economic performance of high-frequency indicators (such as auto and cement sales) as well as LSM numbers (2MFY22: +7.3% YoY) evidently signal that the overall economic activity is on the cusp of a strengthening revival.
The domestic recovery that is likely to push GDP growth higher than initially anticipated is adding to inflationary pressures and thus, the prudent policy approach for the SBP would be to tack in a more hawkish path to manage these risks.
Karachi, November 17, 2021 – The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has released the latest exchange rates for various foreign currencies against the Pakistani Rupee (PKR) on Wednesday, November 17, 2021.
KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has altered its monetary policy announcement date, advancing it to November 19, 2021, from the initially scheduled date of November 26, 2021.
The SBP said the data is compiled and disseminated for information only. These exchange rates are estimates that quoted by various commercial banks to their clients.
KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday launched an end-to-end digital regulatory approval process known as the Regulatory Approval System (RAS).
The central bank now achieved another milestone by launching a module pertaining to banking policy and regulations.
With the launch of this module in RAS, banks, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Microfinance Banks (MFBs) can now submit their request letters/ proposals on a dedicated online portal to SBP’s Banking Policy and Regulations Department whereby SBP, after digitally processing them, would also be in a position to disseminate the regulatory decisions to them through the same portal.
Earlier in October 2020, Governor SBP Dr. Reza Baqir had launched the SBP FX RAS for end-to-end digitization of Foreign Exchange (FX) related case submission process.
The system turned out to be a huge success as it enabled the customers to lodge their FX-related requests from the location of their convenience thereby sparing their valuable time previously spent in navigating the paper-based processes. It also enabled banks to submit FX-related cases electronically for regulatory approval of SBP and SBP-Banking Services Corporation (BSC).
Implementation of RAS for Banking Policy and Regulation-related issues will be effective from November 24, 2021. It will enable banks, DFIs and MFBs to digitally submit their requests and receive regulatory decisions through a single window. Nevertheless, in addition to online submission, banks, DFIs and MFBs shall also continue with the manual submission of their cases that will cease after a brief transitory period till December 31, 2021.
Implementation of SBP’s RAS is expected to conserve precious resources, contribute towards SBP’s Green Banking initiative and bring efficiency in the communication between the banking sector and SBP. Moreover, this arrangement will also replace paper-based submissions that are prone to logistic and storage issues, and cause inadvertent and unnecessary delays for relevant stakeholders.
RAS is a regulatory initiative under SBP’s Vision 2020 aiming at the digital flow of information amongst the stakeholders to improve the service standards through leveraging upon digital techniques.
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has unveiled the latest Karachi Interbank Offered Rates (KIBOR) on November 15, 2021, providing insights into the prevailing interest rates in the interbank market.
The SBP said the data is compiled and disseminated for information only. These exchange rates are estimates that quoted by various commercial banks to their clients.
