Inflow through the Roshan Digital Account (RDA) clocked in at $137 million in November, down by 3.5% as compared to $142 million in October 2023, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) said on Monday.
Out of the total amount, $7 million has so far been repatriated, while funds to the tune of $103 million have been utilised locally. Whereas, the net repatriable liability stands at $27 million.
Meanwhile, cumulative inflows crossed $7.03 billion by November-end.
The central bank shared that total number of RDA accounts opened reached 640,875 from 629,729 a month ago at October-end.
As per the latest data available on SBP’s website, the cumulative RDA inflow clocked in at $7.035 billion by the end of the previous month, out of which $1.531 billion has so far been repatriated, while funds to the tune of $4.322 billion have been utilised locally.
Consequently, total net repatriable liability stands at $1.181 billion as of November-end.
Out of the total outstanding liability, an amount of $755 million is with Naya Pakistan Certificates, with $323 million in conventional NPCs and $432 million in Islamic instruments.
Similarly, an amount of $374 million is ‘balances in accounts’, the SBP showed.
Meanwhile, Roshan Equity Investments improved monthly and stood at a meagre $29 million.
Background
RDA is a significant source of foreign exchange inflows for cash-starved Pakistan.
The initiative was launched in September 2020 by the SBP and offers up to 8% profit on US dollar investments.
Earlier, the central bank in its bid to attract further remittance inflows announced the launch of Diamond Category in the Sohni Dharti Remittance Program.
Effective from September 22, 2023, a new ‘Diamond’ category has been added in the Sohni Dharti Remittance Program (SDRP). The new category is in addition to existing three categories namely, ‘Green’, ‘Gold’ and ‘Platinum’.
The Diamond category offers enhanced reward points and provision of other benefits such as arms licence of non-prohibited bore, preferential treatment at Pakistan embassies/airports and gratis passport to Diamond Category holders.