State Bank of Pakistan digitizes process for banking policy regulatory approvals to enhance efficiency and promote Green Banking Practices

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1. External Relations Department ERD /M&PRD/PR/01/2021-125 November 15, 2021 SBP digitizes process for banking policy regulatory approvals to enhance efficiency and promote Green Banking Practices Building upon its initiative of end-to-end digitization of regulatory approval process, known as Regulatory Approval System (RAS), State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has now achieved another milestone by launching a module pertaining to the banking policy and regulations. With the launch of this module in RAS, banks, Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) and Microfinance Banks (MFBs) can now submit their request letters/ proposals on a dedicated online portal to SBP’s Banking Policy and Regulations Department whereby SBP, after digitally processing them, would also be in a position to disseminate the regulatory decisions to them through the same portal. Earlier in October 2020, Governor SBP Dr. Reza Baqir had launched the SBP FX RAS for end-to-end digitization of Foreign Exchange (FX) related case submission process. The system turned out to be a huge success as it enabled the customers to lodge their FX related requests from the location of their convenience thereby sparing their valuable time previously spent in navigating the paper-based processes. It also enabled banks to submit FX related cases electronically for regulatory approval of SBP and SBP-Banking Services Corporation (BSC). Implementation of RAS for Banking Policy and Regulation related issues will be effective from November 24, 2021. It will enable banks, DFIs and MFBs to digitally submit their requests and receive regulatory decisions through a single window. Nevertheless, in addition to online submission, banks, DFIs and MFBs shall also continue with the manual submission of their cases that will cease after a brief transitory period till December 31, 2021. Implementation of SBP’s RAS is expected to conserve precious resources, contribute towards SBP’s Green Banking initiative and bring efficiency in the communication between banking sector and SBP. Moreover, this arrangement will also replace paper based submissions that are prone to logistic and storage issues, and cause inadvertent and unnecessary delays for relevant stakeholders. RAS is a regulatory initiative under SBP’s Vision 2020 aiming at the digital flow of information amongst the stakeholders to improve the service standards through leveraging upon digital techniques. For details: https://www.sbp.org.pk/bprd/2021/C4.htm ****** Page 1