KARACHI: Pakistan’s information technology and telecommunication stakeholders on Sunday called for a solution to a billing issue that recently suspended payments to Google, Amazon and Meta through cellphones after the central bank said the mechanism violated foreign exchange regulations.

Direct Carrier Billing (DCB) is an online payment method which allows users to make purchases by adding payments to their cellphone bill. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said late Saturday some information technology services had been misused by cellphone operators in violation of the foreign exchange regulations.

Entities desirous of utilizing the facility designate a bank which is then approved by the SBP. Subsequently, such payments can be processed without further regulatory approval.

The central bank said in a recent statement that “Telcos [telecommunication companies] were remitting a bulk of the funds for video gaming, entertainment content etc. purchased by their customers” under the DCB in addition to utilizing the mechanism to remit funds for IT related services for their own use.

The statement added that these companies were acting as intermediaries and payment aggregators by facilitating acquisition of services by their subscribers. It added that in view of the violation of foreign exchange regulations, the SBP had revoked designation of banks for the companies for such payments.

Telecom sector experts said millions of dollars were stuck in the system due to the measure taken by the central bank since September this year.

“I think around $34 million payment has been accumulated during last one month or so,” Parvez Iftikhar, an international telecom consultant, said while talking to Arab News. “Mobile phone users will still be able to download apps from Google Play Store but they will not be able to pay for them using their mobile balance. The payments can still be made through credit cards but a majority of people don’t use them.”

Iftikhar maintained the central bank took the decision to restrict the outflow of dollar, fearing the step would also impact the country’s IT exports since freelancers and other small information technology players would not be able to pay for some of the tools and apps required.

“The value of the acquisition of such services is around $60 million annually which is negligible,” he continued while demanding an “amicable solution” to deal with the situation which was likely to impact IT exports and small technology businesses.

Zohaib Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) said the impact of holding back the payments of global companies was hurting their trust.

“The global companies which have footfall in Pakistan are losing their trust in the country is withholding their payments,” he told Arab News, adding that his organization wanted the government to remove such hurdles to enable technology companies to freely pay and receive dollars.

“If these issues are not resolved, how will our exports increase,” he asked. “While Pakistan grapples with economic crisis, IT and information technology enabled services can potentially stabilize the country’s economy.”

Pakistan’s IT minister Amin Ul Haque also expressed his concern over the payment suspension on Saturday.

“The process of payment halt to foreign institutions may impact Pakistan’s image,” his ministry quoted him as saying.

Haque also wrote a letter to the finance minister, requesting him to ask the central bank to revisit its decision and resume payments.

Google, on the other hand, has decided to suspend the DCB services from November 30 until its outstanding payments are cleared.

The central bank, however, maintained media reports saying that the global IT giant’s payments were stuck at the State Bank were baseless and misleading.

“The SBP strongly refutes all such assertions,” it said in a statement.