ON July 30, I sent my brother to the nearest NBP branch to get the account opening forms. He was told to come the next day as they did not have the forms. Next day he had to return empty handed for the same reason.

I waited for another day and finally my father got the forms. Out of the five pages, some were in Urdu and some in English but neither English nor Urdu was understandable. It had typos and was illegible.

The form was so confusing that it took me half an hour to comprehend and fill the form. It will require another day to get the required stamp papers and after that I will be interviewed.

There were questions that asked me whether I was a US citizen or in any way linked to the US.

Terms were not explained such as CIF number, form W-9, PEP identification and FATCA status information.

The quality of paper was so poor that it tore several times while I was writing. I have heard that people do not pay taxes because the forms to be filled are confusing and the process is inconvenient. Now I understand what kind of challenges they have to face for paying taxes.

Services at private banks are much better. It took me two to three days to open an account at a private bank. I needed an account at NBP on an urgent basis and it has already taken more than five days.

God knows how long it will take to get the account open.

Iqra Siddique

Rawalpindi

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2018