KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Monday said that instructions regarding SMS and email for international and domestic digital transactions were not being complied with by the banks as per its guidelines.

In a circular issued on Monday, the SBP said it was observed that the instructions were not being meticulously complied with and customers did not receive SMS alerts immediately despite posting of transactions in their accounts, causing difficulty for sender and receiver of funds.

Similarly, in some cases customers did not receive their one-time passwords (OTPs) via SMS on time due to which they faced difficulty in completing their transactions, said the SBP.

Earlier, the SBP had advised banks and Micro Finance Banks to send free of cost transaction alerts to their customers through both SMS and email for all international and domestic digital transactions including but not limited to ATMs, POS terminals and Internet banking transactions. It was also mentioned that such transaction alerts will be generated and relayed to the customers immediately after execution of the transaction.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2022