KARACHI: In a move towards promoting ease of doing business and digitisation, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Friday abolished the need for paper-based submissions relating to foreign exchange.

“The paper-based submission of cases by authorised dealers to the Foreign Exchange Operations Department (FEOD) has been abolished forthwith,” the SBP said in a statement. It also implemented a Regulatory Approval System (RAS) for ease of doing business.

Similarly, the banks have also been advised to submit foreign exchange policy-related cases pertaining to the Exchange Policy Department (EPD) electronically through the SBP RAS.

However, for EPD, in addition to electronic, manual submission of cases through surface mail will continue for time being until further instructions, it added.

The SBP RAS is expected to conserve resources and bring efficiency by allowing timely foreign exchange approvals and replacing paper-based submissions that are prone to logistic and storage issues and cause unnecessary delays.

The SBP said it has launched a RAS for submission of cases related to foreign exchange policy and operations dealt by its Exchange Policy Department (EPD), SBP and FEOD, SBP-BSC respectively.

The SBP RAS, which has become operational from Mar 24, provides an online platform for banks to interact with the SBP/BSC for submission of cases and receiving regulatory decisions.

A key feature of the system is to keep customers updated about the status of their requests routed through banks from the day it is received at the SBP.

Customers will receive system-generated update status reports, at their email address provided by the respective banks, from the time of case submission till completion.

Customers will also be able to check the status of their cases on SBP’s website anytime.

Using SBP RAS, banks will electronically submit foreign exchange operations-related cases to the FEOD.

The RAS is a step towards digitisation intended to leverage technology for improving public service and promoting ease of doing business in the country, said the SBP.

The initiative is a part of SBP’s Vision 2020 under which a Knowledge Management Project was initiated aiming to implement a modern framework for retention and sharing of information and knowledge.

Published in Dawn, March 28th, 2020