KARACHI, Jan 10: The Governor State Bank, Dr Ishrat Hussain on Thursday, highlighting the need of Information Technology in the Banking industry, said the central bank would provide all facilities, besides offering different incentives to the banks for going on line.

Speaking at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE) Banking Bazaar here, he said most of the central banks in the world had already adopted IT culture while SBP had spent $24 million on the first phase of its IT plan that would be completed by December 2002. Another $12 million would be spent on the second phase of this project, he added.

A total of 31 vendors, suppliers and software companies are participating in the exhibition organized by TIE at a local hotel.

Dr Ishrat Hussain said that the completion of the first phase of the IT project would enable SBP to have on-line communication with the major players of the financial industry. The SBP would purchase all software from the local market, and, for computer components, agreements would be signed with the foreign companies, he said.

He said SBP received around 250 monthly reports from banks for evaluation to take remedial steps. It was quite time-consuming task, which was not possible at present. It is the reason of delay in taking action against the banks on regulatory issues, he explained.

“As regulator, we will download the data from the sites of the banks and evaluate on daily basis which will enable the SBP to take stock of the affairs of the banks on current basis and check their policies and violations of certain rules, etc., after completion of the IT project,” he said.

He said, SBP was establishing a computer lab that would help reduce the cost of setting up of such infrastructure in the central bank.—APP