ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s mobile and Internet banking transactions surged by a whopping 57 percent in volume and 81 percent by value during the fiscal year 2022-23, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said in a report on Wednesday.
According to the Annual Payment Systems Review for the fiscal year 2022-23 released by the SBP, Internet banking users increased by 15.1 percent to 9.6 million in Pakistan while mobile phone banking users rose by 30.2 percent to reach 16.1 million in FY23.
“The e-banking is attracting more customers due to its efficient and instant payment solutions, and its transactions are growing at a steady pace over the years,” the SBP said in the report.
The report said paper-based transactions declined by over 4 percent during FY23 and cumulatively around 20 percent in the last five years. However, it added that the value of paper-based transactions increased by 20 percent in FY23.
The SBP report further said that as of June 30, 2023, there were 115,288 Point Of Sales terminals, 17,808 ATMs, 520 Cash/Cheque Deposit Machines and 6,889 e-commerce merchants to provide payments services to customers.
“During the fiscal year, the number of transactions through POS (199.3 million) and ATMs (809.7 million) grew annually by 45 percent and 17 percent respectively,” it said. “Domestic e-commerce transactions using payment cards were 31.8 million which amounted to PKR 142 billion during the year.”
The report said that as of June 30, 2023, there were 58.1 million payment cards in circulation in Pakistan of which 44.5 million were issued by banks and Microfinance Banks, 10.8 million by branchless banks, and 2.8 million by EMIs.
ISLAMABAD: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar urged the developed world on Saturday to help nations most vulnerable to the impact of erratic weather patterns by extending financial and technical assistance while addressing a gathering at the United Nations climate conference in Dubai.
Kakar is on a week-long visit to the Middle East where he is currently spearheading his country’s delegation at the 28th UN Conference of Parties (COP28) that began on Nov. 30.
Pakistan is among the most vulnerable nations in the world to climate change and has set up its own pavilion at the conference venue to highlight some of the most-pressing issues related to a rapidly accelerating climate crisis.
Kakar participated in the Global Stock Take event to assess the progress made by the world to collectively deal with the issue of climate change.
“In his remarks at this roundtable discussion, the Prime Minister highlighted the acuteness of the climate crisis and laid emphasis on providing adequate means of implementation including climate finance, capacity-building and technology, to developing countries to tackle this growing challenge,” said a brief statement issued by his office in Islamabad.
He pointed out that climate finance would always be the enabler for climate action, adding that the needs of developing countries far exceeded the unfulfilled $100 billion pledge made in Paris during the 2015 conference to ensure climate adaptability.
“Prime Minister also called for scaling-up development and transfer of proven climate technologies, as well as better delivery of capacity building for developing countries,” the statement added. “The need for greater coherence and coordination across the United Nations system was also underscored.”
Pakistan's Caretaker Prime Minister, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar (center), is being received by the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (right), and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, upon his arrival at Dubai Expo City to attend the High-Level Segment of the United Nations' 28th Conference of Parties on December 1, 2023. (Photo courtesy: PMO)
Kakar is also scheduled to attend a discussion session on the ecological restoration of the Indus Basin at the UN conference.
The event is organized at the Pakistan Pavilion by Living Indus, the country’s biggest climate initiative that is estimated to cost $11-17 billion and was launched with UN support last year in September.
The initiative aims to protect and restore the health of the Indus River, which is crucial for the economy, environment and well-being of millions of people in Pakistan.
The Living Indus project focuses on addressing the challenges faced by the Indus River system, including water scarcity, pollution and habitat degradation, through various conservation and sustainable management strategies.
According to the information available on its website, 90 percent of Pakistan’s people and more than three-quarters of its economy resides in the Indus Basin. More than 80 percent of Pakistan’s arable land is irrigated by its waters, and nine out of the ten largest cities in the country are situated within 50 kilometers or less of the waters of Indus.
The Indus River has served as the vibrant core of the social, cultural and economic life of what is now Pakistan for well over 5,000 years. According to the country’s former climate change minister, Senator Sherry Rehman, however, it is the world’s second most polluted river today.
DUBAI: A Pakistani school won the prestigious Zayed Sustainability Prize of $100,000 after being declared the best Global School in South Asia for its innovative project on water conservation and organic farming at the UN climate conference in Dubai on Friday.
The school is operated by the Kashmir Orphan Relief Trust (KORT) and was competing for the prize against two other finalists from India and Bangladesh.
Two young representatives of the trust were present at the gathering at the Expo City in Dubai where United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed presented the award.
The Zayed Sustainability Prize honors the legacy of UAE’s founding father Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan by rewarding small and medium enterprises, non-profit organizations, and high schools addressing health, food, energy, water and climate-related challenges.
The prize has been awarded to 106 recipients in the last 15 years to positively impact the lives of 384 million people worldwide.
“Our project is on water conservation because, in 2025, clean drinking water will finish in Pakistan,” Sumaiya Bibi, 19, told Arab News after receiving the award on behalf of the trust.
After losing her parents in the 2005 earthquake in Pakistan’s Kashmir region, she found a sense of direction by focusing on climate-related projects.
“We want to set up water filtration plants and sensor taps in our school to minimize water wastage,” she said. “We also want to set up a kitchen garden in our school through organic farming so that the children can get nutrition from the organically grown food.”
KORT School and College of Excellence is based in Azad Kashmir and was set up in 2016 for children who were orphaned in the devastating earthquake. The facility is serving over 500 students.
The trust also opened another school in Swabi this October which can house 450 children. For the past several years, KORT has been supporting and providing orphaned children with education, boarding facilities, food, clothing and medical care.
Kinza Bibi, another 19-year-old student at the education institute in Kashmir who also represented the trust at the event said: “We want the children at the school to learn how to preserve clean water.”
According to the founding chairman of the organization, Chaudhry Mohammed Akhtar, the prize money would be used to undertake projects related to clean water and organic farming in rural areas.
The 11 winners of the prize this year were elected in September by a panel of jury members, who evaluated each submission for its contribution and commitment to delivering impactful, innovative, and inspiring solutions across the six categories of health, food, energy, water, climate action and global high schools.
This year, the 11 winners across all these categories shared a total prize fund of $3.6 million for their pioneering solutions to transform lives and accelerate environmental change around the world.
ISLAMABAD: Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party said on Saturday it had elected Barrister Gohar Ali Khan as new chairman after he was nominated for the post by the ex-premier who has been in prison since August on charges ranging from corrupt practices to leaking state secrets.
The intra-party polls, which have been described as controversial by PTI critics, were held after Pakistan’s election commission ordered Khan’s party to hold them within 20 days to retain cricket bat as its election symbol.
This led to political quandary for PTI officials since some of its members pointed out it would not be possible for Khan, the founding leader and chairman of the party, to run for the post after being disqualified to hold public office in a case involving the illegal sale of state gifts during his tenure in power.
“Intra-party elections conducted,” the PTI said in a brief statement while announcing results.
It informed that Barrister Gohar had been elected unopposed while Omer Ayub Khan had won the contest for the party secretary-general.
The results also named the provincial PTI presidents, saying Dr. Yasmin Rashid would lead the party in Punjab, Ali Amin Gandapur in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Munir Ahmed Baloch in Balochistan and Haleem Adil Sheikh in Sindh.
“I will fulfil chairman’s responsibilities as Khan’s successor and representative,” Barrister Gohar said after the announcement of results. “There are 170 political parties in the country who have been presenting [internal] election results to the Election Commission of Pakistan since 1960. However, their intra-party polls have not be scrutinized like ours have.”
The new PTI chairman said the Pakistani people were watching these developments, hoping it would ultimately lead to an end to political “persecution.”
“This position is with me as a sacred trust until Khan is back,” he added.
One of the founding PTI members, who later fell apart from the ex-PM and other party leaders, however, dismissed the polls even before they were organized.
Akbar S. Babar described the exercise as “selection, elections,” promising to hold a news conference to share “important facts” about the intra-party polls later today.
PTI’s rival party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), also raised objections to the conduct of elections.
PML-N leader and former federal information minister, Mariyum Aurangzeb, told the media the “selection process” only took 15 minutes.
She maintained the intra-party polls were held at a secret place and lacked voters, voter lists and presiding officers.
ISLAMABAD: The jail trial of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, with media and members of the public allowed access for the first time, will begin today, Saturday, at Rawalpindi’s Adiala jail in a case in which the ex-premier is accused of leaking state secrets.
A special court established to hear what has popularly come to be called the cipher case had been conducting the trial inside the Adiala prison in Rawalpindi city since Khan was indicted on the charges last month and after the government said he could not be moved to a courtroom for hearings due to security reasons. However, the Islamabad High Court ruled last week that holding Khan’s trial inside jail premises on security concerns was illegal, and ordered it restarted in an open court.
The trial began afresh on Friday, but Khan and Shah Mahmood Qureshi, a close aide who has also been indicted in the case, were not produced before the special court when the hearing began because a law ministry notification sanctioning their trial had not been submitted until well into the hearing.
The proceedings broke for recess and when they resumed, the judge said the law ministry’s notification had arrived and adjourned the hearing till Saturday.
“Another blatant attempt to slow the process when [law ministry] notification could have been issued yesterday,” a PTI media manager told reporters on Friday.
Khan, who is the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, is being held at Adiala jail where he is serving a three-year sentence in a separate case in which he was convicted in August of failing to disclose assets earned from the sale of state gifts while he was PM from 2018-2022.
Khan is also accused in a number of other cases, including the cipher case, which relates to an alleged diplomatic correspondence between Washington and Islamabad that Khan says was proof that his ouster as PM in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April 2022 was part of a US conspiracy to remove him. Washington has repeatedly denied Khan’s accusations.
Khan, arguably the most popular politician in the country, has not been seen in public since he was arrested in August. Prior to that, he regularly addressed his millions of followers via social media and held massive public rallies and protest marches.
Khan had also been appearing in courts prior to his August arrest protected by his personal security guards. But he has also sought exemptions from personal appearances, often citing threats to his safety.
The former premier says all cases against him are “politically motivated” and aimed at keeping him and his party out of politics ahead of general elections, due in February.
RAWALPINDI: Former prime minister Imran Khan’s legal team on Saturday accused the officials of a high-security prison in Rawalpindi for flouting court orders by not ensuring adequate media presence during his jail trial on charges of divulging state secrets, saying today’s proceedings could not be called an “open trial.”
A special court established to hear what has popularly come to be called the cipher case has been conducting the trial inside the Adiala prison in Rawalpindi since Khan was indicted under the Official Secrets Act last month after the government said he could not be moved to a courtroom for security reasons.
The Islamabad High Court (IHC) ruled last week, however, such hearings were illegal and ordered an open trial with media access.
A large number of journalists were present to attend the special court proceedings at the prison facility Saturday morning, though most of them were disappointed after the authorities only called three local journalists in to witness the trial.
“It was directed by the Islamabad High Court that an open trial in the cipher case will be given to Imran Khan,” the ex-PM’s lawyer, Intazar Hussain Panjutha, told Arab News. “But unfortunately, today’s hearing was in the violation of the order of IHC.”
A lawyer is seen walking out of the gate of Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, on December 2, 2023. (AN Photo)
“The proceedings were held in a similar manner as they were being held prior to the declaration of IHC,” he continued. “We protested this, we resisted it before the court. It was not an open trial.”
Asked about Khan’s morale, he said the former prime minister was in high spirits and looked confident.
“He was waiting for the hearing to start and he was waiting for the media to come in,” he added.
Khan’s spokesperson on legal affairs, Naeem Haider Panjutha, also weighed in, saying the cipher case hearings could not be described as part of fair trial.
He informed the three journalists were allowed to witness the trial only after Khan’s legal team boycotted the hearing.
“Khan said this is not a fair trial,” he added. “Fair trial means giving access to the media. Media is public. Media should be given permission [to cover the proceedings].”
According to Yasir Hakeem, a journalist working for Samaa TV who was allowed to witness the trial, the ex-premier objected to his treatment, saying he was made to feel like an animal while his rival, Nawaz Sharif, was “brought back” from exile in London after being convicted in a corruption reference.
“We are not even allowed to speak,” Hakeem quoted him as saying.
The former prime minister, who is the chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, is being held at Adiala jail where he is serving a three-year sentence in a separate case in which he was convicted in August of failing to disclose assets earned from the sale of state gifts while he was PM from 2018-2022.
Khan is also accused in a number of other cases, including the cipher case, which relates to an alleged diplomatic correspondence between Washington and Islamabad that Khan says was proof that his ouster as PM in a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in April 2022 was part of a US conspiracy to remove him. Washington has repeatedly denied Khan’s accusations.
Khan, arguably the most popular politician in the country, has not been seen in public since he was arrested in August. Prior to that, he regularly addressed his millions of followers via social media and held massive public rallies and protest marches.
