State Bank to Punish Banks That Offer Poor Digital Banking Services

The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) may consider penalizing banks for poor digital banking services as a last resort to ensure high quality of services for the customers in the industry, said Governor SBP, Dr. Reza Baqir.

Responding to a query by ProPakistani at the press conference about the consistently poor digital services by various banks, he said the banking regulator could also consider various options, including penalty on banks and introduction of the scoring table of key indicators in order to improve the banking services particulars digital banking within the banking sector.

However, he added that the banking regulator prefers to maintain healthy competition among the banks, which allows customers to switch from one bank to another bank easily in search of a better quality of services.

Governor Baqir mentioned that the banking regulator is working aggressively towards the establishment of digital banks in the country aimed at providing enhanced, high quality, and variety of banking services to the customers.

Digital banking in Pakistan has witnessed a steep rise in utility in the last couple of years as the COVID-19 pandemic made a preventive choice for customers for using digital banking (mobile and internet banking) as an alternate way of banking.

Hence, a large number of customers have been habitually using digital banking, but the network of a few banks has collapsed many times because of a lack of capacity to process a high number of transactions. The consistent faults of services perturbed customers to have faced inconvenience and hardship, which also minimize their trust level in the advanced banking system.

Common KYC

Dr. Reza Baqir said the banking regulator is working towards easing off banking regulations at the end of the customers through devising a rule of common Know Your Customer (KYC) for the customers.

In this way, a customer once gets registered with a bank through physical forms or digital onboarding will have a unique identity in the banking system, which will be enough for him if he switches his account from one bank to another bank.

There is no need for a customer to register himself again and again after he records his data with one bank, he added.

Low Deposit Rates

On the query about prevailing low deposit and saving rates in the banking system, the SBP Governor responded that SBP may also consider the improvement of the rates that could encourage savings in the country, but there is no decision in this regard on the cards.

He added that controlling inflation will turn real interest rates positive and ultimately attract customers to make their investments in various deposit schemes.

The mandate of the SBP is to control inflation at its best but there is also a role of administrative authorities in the country, which could lower the inflation through controlling prices of essential commodities at a local level.

Reza further said the inflation will likely come down in the coming months as the prices of petroleum products are likely to come down in the global market whereas the food inflation could be controlled through enhanced local production of various crops within the country.



Get Alerts

Follow ProPakistani to get latest news and updates.


ProPakistani Community

Join the groups below to get latest news and updates.



>