KARACHI          -          Banks across the country will be required to electronically submit foreign exchange related cases through State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP’s) Online Portal, said Managing Director, SBP Banking Services Corporation (BSC), Muhammad Ashraf Khan.

Apprising the concerned stakeholders about the details of updates being introduced in The Bank’s foreign exchange operations and its Online Portal, he said following the formal launch of the portal this month, banks will electronically submit foreign exchange related cases to SBP.

Khan also highlighted the key initiatives taken by SBP to digitalize the processes and move towards paper-less environment, which will ultimately benefit the businesses of the country.

The SBP Managing Director also informed the participants about recent policy measures taken by SBP to promote the business sentiments in the country.

According to him, the current measures are in continuation of SBP’s efforts to ease the earlier restrictions as well as to facilitate and support ease of doing business in view of the improved economic outlook.

Khan mentioned that in order to keep the clients abreast about the status of cases submitted to SBP, an email containing system-generated unique case number will be sent to the clients on the email address provided by banks at the time of case submission.

Furthermore, the updated position of their case can also be accessed on SBP website through unique case number assigned to each case, he said.

The two core departments of SBP related to forex operations i.e. Exchange Policy Department (EPD) and Foreign Exchange Operations Department (FEOD) were said to have also arranged series of detailed presentations on initiatives being taken by SBP.

EPD Director of SBP in his welcome address underlined the key role of business sector in economic revival and future growth of the country.

Meanwhile, the stakeholders were also given an overview about working of the online portal during a detailed presentation.

It may be mentioned here that in order to create awareness among the business community about the foreign exchange operations and to keep them abreast about the key developments at State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) related to digitalization and ease of doing business, awareness sessions were conducted at its offices Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Sialkot.

The subject sessions were attended by more than 150 officials from different companies nominated by various chambers and associations including Pakistan Business Council, Overseas Chamber of Commerce and Industry and local chamber of commerce & industry of respective cities.

The presentation in Karachi office was followed by interactive question and answer sessions.

Participants raised queries related to various aspects of foreign exchange operations including exchange rate stability, SBP’s guidelines regarding trade based money laundering (TBML) and government subsidy schemes for exporter.These were answered by the SBP management. Similar sessions have also been planned for other cities in coming weeks.