Deceptive marketing practices in banking, telecom, real estate sectors: Senate's body asks CCP to share its monopoly curbing mechanism

Senate's Standing Committee on Finance has directed the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) to share mechanism adopted by the commission for controlling deceptive marketing practices in extending bank loans along with telecom and real estate sectors, and give comments on doing away with monopoly-like situation in banking sector. The meeting of the committee would be held on November 26 at Parliament House.
The CCP will give a detailed briefing on the existing Process/Operational requirement for the evaluation of the requests and issuance of NOC eventually, in the case of Mergers and Acquisition. The commission would also give a detailed briefing on the role and responsibilities of the CCP and what Corporate Governance mechanisms do to ensure protection of consumers' rights. In line with the scope of work, the committee has asked the CCP how it ensures protection of consumer interests in the Inland Freight Equalisation Margin.
The CCP will give detailed briefing on the scope of work, and share how CCP ensure consumer interests protection, in the area of HR - irregular hiring of people, offering out-of-line benefits-in violation of rules & regulations, etc. The CCP will share the details of audit procedures, measure, in this respect.
The committee has also directed the commission to give detailed briefing on mechanism adopted by CCP for controlling deceptive marketing practices in the areas of Bank Loans, Telecom, Real Estate, etc. How effective CCP can be in this critical area? There are obvious cartels, albeit unofficially, in some of the industries, like Cement. How does CCP deals with such situations?
Is there any method the CCP figures out, when there is any risk of cartel being formed in any of the Industries? The committee has further asked as to what the CCP has to say about the monopoly like situation in Banking (around 80 percent of the assets are in the hands of top five banks) and by virtue of which these five institutions seems to be driving/ controlling the industry while rest of the smaller institutions are at very serious disadvantage The committee reminded the CCP.
How does CCP work with Institute of Corporate Governance and SECP? This may be important in achieving the desired objectives of CCP for pre and post audit/issuance of NOCs. The committee has further directed the CCP to share measures to gauge the performance of CCP during a given year.