The State Bank of Pakistan is now considering the option of allowing people to open their accounts at banks with the need is to be physically present. Pakistan has recently allowed overseas Pakistanis with this big news as to open bank accounts without any physically visiting branches and the embassies in their host countries.
According to Dr. Reza Baqir, the State Bank of Pakistan’s Governor, The Digital account opening is just like the way forward. We already have a plan to introduce the facility domestically and to also allow digital onboarding.
SBP’s Governor also highlighted that the community was facing the issues in opening the new bank accounts, mostly the housewives who had lodged the complaints as bankers asked them for the source of income or for their husband’s source of income to open their account.
This step would allow the women to easily open their bank accounts and easily use the data of women; SBP would also be able to formulate the better policies for women. He also said that women were offered the concessional financing through central banks. The concessional financing offered the women to get loans of up to Rs Five million at an interest rate of 5%. There is also a 60% risk coverage that is being provided to the banks. This means that the traditional issues of (submitting) the collateral (for loan acquisition) can easily be considerably overcome.
The central bank is making efforts for increasing the women workforce by up to 20% as in the banking sector in upcoming 3 years. Many women are not aware of the concessional scheme that is being provided by the government as to less than a thousand women knows about it and have taken the advantage of this scheme till now.
