ISLAMABAD, July 26: A team of Washington-based experts is arriving here next week to provide technical assistance to the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in amending the non-banking finance companies (establishment and regulation) rules (NBFC), 2003.

Officials on Wednesday said the World Bank had facilitated the American experts to help the SECP update the legal framework for the establishment, operation and conduct of NBFCs in accordance with the changing environment of the NBFC sector in Pakistan.

The SECP has already conducted five in-house meetings and some 20 meetings with firms of corporate lawyers in this regard.

"In the next six, seven months, the NBFC rules would be amended into totally new rules," a SECP official said, adding that everything was final and the draft was ready to be sent to the finance ministry.

However, the amendments needed to be evaluated and recommended by the team of experts from the United States. The NBFC sector as a whole has grown over the last year. This change is largely attributed to the introduction of regulatory reforms aimed at development of NBFCs and enhanced supervision by the SECP.

Amendments to the rules are aimed at brining the legal provision at par with market development.

The officials said the e-governance system of the commission was also in the final stages. The online e-services would facilitate electronic registration of names by companies and also the registration of companies, brokers and agents. The e-service would enable the country's top regulator to issue online licences for establishing companies and would enable companies to file returns electronically.

“This electronic filing of returns would save the time of companies," an official said.

The e-service also includes an archive project that will store all the backlog of information available with the SECP. For the first time, complainants will know the status of their complaints and when they will be redressed. The SECP is busy in amending a number of its existing rules. It is already in the process of bringing the revised version of the Continuous Funding System (CFS) called CFS Mk-II.

The officials said the revised version was seeking the removal of notorious badla financing and would allow banks to directly fund the market. At present banks fund the market through brokers, giving the later an upper hand over small investors.