Islamabad
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Deputy Governor Dr. Murtaza Syed, said Monday that witnessing the success of Roshan Digital Account (RDA) initiative by Pakistan, many countries were approaching the central bank for guidance.
As many as 177,980 Roshan Digital Accounts (RDAs) have been opened by overseas Pakistan from around 171 countries of the world, depositing $1.5 billion funds so far, he said while speaking at a webinar on “Pakistan’s Investment Landscape, Roshan Digital Account, Journey Towards a Naya Pakistan.”
“We have created something quite special. In fact, many other countries are reaching out to us, having seen the success of the Roshan Digital Account to try to understand how we went about it; how we implemented various mechanisms that had never been done before,” he said.
He said that this idea of digitally onboarding customer that doesn’t actually live in that particular jurisdiction was not a very easy thing to do; adding that most emerging markets don’t actually have a mechanism like this.
He said that the SBP had to put in new regulations to allow this kind of presence-less onboarding of customers and enable overseas Pakistanis to be able to open bank account in Pakistan “This doesn’t exist before and doesn’t exist for many countries,” he added.
He was of the view that earlier, the Pakistani diaspora was frustrated for not having proper connectivity to Pakistani banking system and have control over their funds, adding that last year, when Prime Minister directed for connecting the overseas Pakistanis, the SBP came with RDA initiative after removing bottlenecks and adopting latest technology.
Murtaza Syed said that the amount deposited in RDA was fully repatriable and the account holder could withdraw money back any time he/she wants. He said that customers have already been successfully using this facility.—APP
