KARACHI: Pakistan has received $554 in five months from Roshan Digital Accounts, a banking initiative for non-resident Pakistanis launched last year, with 57 percent of the remittances, or $316 million, coming from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the central bank has said.
A Roshan Digital Account (RDA) enables overseas Pakistanis to open a bank account online from anywhere outside Pakistan without visiting a branch and permits account holders to send money into the account. Account holders can perform transactions like funds transfer and bill payment via online banking, debit card or cheque books. Online banking is available for all RDA customers.
Since the initiative’s launch in September 2020, overseas Pakistanis have opened 92,500 accounts and remitted $554 million. Thirty four percent of the accounts were opened by Pakistanis living in Saudi Arabia and 24 percent by UAE residents, according to a presentation given by the central bank on Wednesday.
“Out of $554 million put into Roshan Digital Accounts, 22% funds were received from Saudi Arabia and 35% from Pakistani living in UAE,” Syed Irfan Ali, Managing Director of Deposit Protection Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the State Bank of Pakistan, said at a ceremony to mark Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) joining the RDA initiative.
Roshan Digital Account services were being offered by nine banks including Saudi Samba Bank. Dubai Islamic Bank, the world’s first Islamic bank, is the tenth to join.
“Our existing customer base of over 200,000 in UAE gives us an all-important advantage to capture the potential for Roshan Digital Accounts,” DIB CEO Junaid Ahmed said at the joining ceremony in Karachi. “Moreover, non-resident Pakistanis working in UAE will also benefit from this product. Our focus is on a seamless experience and prompt response time for the customers.”
Roshan Digital Accounts enable overseas Pakistanis to deposit and invest in Pakistan. They also offer an additional financial instrument, Naya Pakistan Certificates (NPCs), through which overseas Pakistanis can invest in USD and Pakistani currency with returns of 7% and 11% on five years maturity.
NPCs offer attractive risk-free returns over different maturities and are available in both conventional and Shariah compliant versions administered by the central bank. So far, central bank officials say overseas Pakistanis have invested $358 through NPCs.
$316 mln inflows in Roshan Digital Accounts from Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia, UAE
https://arab.news/23s5s
$316 mln inflows in Roshan Digital Accounts from Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia, UAE
- Roshan Digital Accounts enable overseas Pakistanis to open bank account online from anywhere outside Pakistan without visiting branch
- Since initiative’s launch in Sept 2020, overseas Pakistanis have opened 92,500 accounts and remitted $554 million
Pakistani politicians urge dialogue with Imran Khan’s party as PM offers talks
- National Dialogue Committee group organizes summit attended by prominent lawyers, politicians and journalists in Islamabad
- Participants urge government to lift alleged ban on political activities and media restrictions, form committee for negotiations
ISLAMABAD: Participants of a meeting featuring prominent politicians, lawyers and civil society members on Wednesday urged the government to initiate talks with former prime minister Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, lift alleged bans on political activities after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently invited the PTI for talks.
The summit was organized by the National Dialogue Committee (NDC), a political group formed last month by former PTI members Chaudhry Fawad Husain, ex-Sindh governor Imran Ismail and Mehmood Moulvi. The NDC has called for efforts to ease political tensions in the country and facilitate dialogue between the government and Khan’s party.
The development takes place amid rising tensions between the PTI and Pakistan’s military and government. Khan, who remains in jail on a slew of charges he says are politically motivated, blames the military and the government for colluding to keep him away from power by rigging the 2024 general election and implicating him in false cases. Both deny his allegations.
Since Khan was ousted in a parliamentary vote in April 2022, the PTI has complained of a widespread state crackdown, while Khan and his senior party colleagues have been embroiled in dozens of legal cases. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif last month invited the PTI for talks during a meeting of the federal cabinet, saying harmony among political forces was essential for the country’s progress.
“The prime objective of the dialogue is that we want to bring the political temperatures down,” Ismail told Arab News after the conference concluded.
“At the moment, the heat is so much that people— especially in politics— they do not want to sit across the table and discuss the pertaining issues of Pakistan which is blocking the way for investment.”
Former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who heads the Awaam Pakistan political party, attended the summit along with Jamaat-e-Islami senior leader Liaquat Baloch, Muttahida Quami Movement-Pakistan’s Waseem Akhtar and Haroon Ur Rashid, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. Journalists Asma Shirazi and Fahd Husain also attended the meeting.
Members of the Pakistan Peoples Party, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) and the PTI did not attend the gathering.
The NDC urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, President Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif to initiate talks with the opposition. It said after the government forms its team, the NDC will announce the names of the opposition negotiating team after holding consultations with its jailed members.
“Let us create some environment. Let us bring some temperatures down and then we will do it,” Ismail said regarding a potential meeting with the jailed Khan.
Muhammad Ali Saif, a former adviser to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister, told participants of the meeting that Pakistan was currently in a “dysfunctional state” due to extreme political polarization.
“The tension between the PTI and the institutions, particularly the army, at the moment is the most fundamental, the most prominent and the most crucial issue,” Saif noted.
‘CHANGED FACES’
The summit proposed six specific confidence-building measures. These included lifting an alleged ban on political activities and the appointment of the leaders of opposition in Pakistan’s Senate and National Assembly.
The joint communique called for the immediate release of women political prisoners, such as Khan’s wife Bushra Bibi and PTI leader Yasmin Rashid, and the withdrawal of cases against supporters of political parties.
The communiqué also called for an end to media censorship and proposed that the government and opposition should “neither use the Pakistan Armed Forces for their politics nor engage in negative propaganda against them.”
Amir Khan, an overseas Pakistani businessperson, complained that frequent political changes in the country had undermined investors’ confidence.
“I came here with investment ideas, I came to know that faces have changed after a year,” Amir Khan said, referring to the frequent change in government personnel.
Khan’s party, on the other hand, has been calling for a “meaningful” political dialogue with the government.
However, it has accused the government of denying PTI members meetings with Khan in the Rawalpindi prison where he remains incarcerated.
“For dialogue to be meaningful, it is essential that these authorized representatives are allowed regular and unhindered access to Imran Khan so that any engagement accurately reflects his views and PTI’s collective position,” PTI leader Azhar Leghari told Arab News last week.
