KARACHI, Oct 12: The State Bank has taken notice of leakage of its confidential inspection reports of the banks and non-bank financial institutions.

The SBP has asked all banks and NBFIs to enforce an effective and foolproof system to ensure that the access to the inspection reports is strictly limited to their authorized officials. The SBP instruction has come in a recent circular issued to the banks and DFIs a few days ago.

“It has been observed lately that some of the banks to whom the inspection reports or their drafts were dispatched in a sealed cover by the State Bank are not meticulously complying with these instructions,” says the circular referring to the provisions of the SBP Act that prohibits leakage of confidential inspection reports. “Instances have to notice where some of the banks have not been able to maintain confidentiality with respect to the contents of the inspection reports and unauthorized employees have succeeded in breaching the secrecy/confidentiality thereof with serious implications.”

The circular has reproduced a couple of provisions from the SBP Act relating to production of unpublished record of banks. One provision says: “No court, tribunal or authority shall be entitled to compel the bank or any person in the service of the bank to produce, or as the case may be, give any evidence derived from any unpublished record of the bank”.

The other says: “No court, tribunal or other authority shall permit any one to produce or give evidence derived from, any unpublished record of the bank except with the prior permission in writing of the Governor (SBP) who may give or withhold such permission as he thinks fit”.