The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has launched a Foreign Exchange (FX) Portal for end-to-end digitalization of FX requests. This new digital ecosystem is a collaboration between of SBP, SBP Banking Services Corporation and the banking sector of Pakistan.

Through this new initiative, SBP hopes to facilitate the general public and business community through innovative and efficient financial services.

With the aim of bringing more efficiency and transparency to the process and promoting ease of doing business in Pakistan, SBP has designed this centralized online platform to prepare, submit and process cases.

Currently, customers of 22 banks can submit their cases digitally from their workplace.

In phase 1, the task of digitizing foreign exchange cases from banks to SBP was undertaken. The type of cases included approvals for outward remittances, foreign investments, foreign loans, government subsidies, acknowledgments of foreign agreements and international trade.

The objective has been to ensure that the system is simple, standardized and secure for the users. A secure front-end portal provides users access to all the banks and a simple three-step process lets authorized dealers fill up web forms, attach required documents and submit the case.

Moreover, every case will be assigned a unique number and the system at the backend will assign the case requests to dealing officers at the SBP based on the Round Robin Algorithm. After due diligence, the case will be processed as per applicable laws, rules and regulations.

In addition to this, a decision letter is generated by the system and is sent to the bank, once the case is processed internally. The bank can download the decision letter from the same portal with SBP's digital signature on it.

System-generated emails will also be sent to the banker and the requesting customer to inform them about the progress on the case. Furthermore, customers are also given a lot of visibility about the case through SBP's website.

In phase 2, banks in Pakistan in collaboration wit SBP have also developed online portals for their clients, resulting in end-to-end digitalization of the complete process.

According to SBP, this new initiative will also result in lower processing times and cost savings from paper reduction. SBP also hopes to enhance this system in the future by including other regulatory departments of the SBP to it.