Issuance of fresh banknotes: SBP to set up special counters at 150 designated branches

The State Bank of Pakistan has decided to set up special counters at 150 designated branches of the commercial banks to facilitate issuance of fresh currency notes to the public during the month of Ramazan and for Eid-ul-Fitr, 2014. Issuance of fresh bank notes from these branches will commence from July 16, and will be made under the supervision of the officials of the SBP BSC.
It may be added that during Ramazan of 2013 only 91 branches were designated for this purpose, a step that helped the SBP to provide fresh currency notes in a more effective manner and in greater quantity both in value and pieces. Therefore, the number of such branches has been substantially increased this year as stated above. The city wise details of these branches are available on the following SBP web link: http://www.sbp.org.pk/BANKNOTES/2014/Designated-Branches.pdf.
The 150 designated branches will be in addition to the large network of commercial bank branches for which additional fresh currency notes of small denomination will be issued by the field offices of the SBP BSC. It will be the responsibility of the main branches of the commercial banks in the cities where SBP BSC has offices to lift the fresh bank notes of small denomination and distribute among their branches across the country keeping in view the business and size of the same. For this purpose, the SBP BSC has issued detailed guidelines to the banks and has also put in place a mechanism for monitoring of bank branches to ensure distribution of fresh notes as per plans to be submitted to field offices of SBP BSC. SBP will penalise the banks violating these instructions.
The branches of commercial banks/microfinance banks will issue one packet each of Rs 10/-, Rs 20/-, Rs 50/- and Rs 100/- to the visiting general public/account holders. To ensure efficient and transparent issuance by commercial bank branches, issuance to general public / account holders will be made on presentation of original Computerised National Identity Card (CNIC) and a copy to be provided for bank's record. The issuance of fresh notes from these branches will start from July 7, 2014.