KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday relaxed the condition of application of the Minimum Deposit Rate (MDR) floor to individual saving deposits that maintain an average monthly balance of up to Rs10 million, effective from Aug 1, in order to encourage more investment in government securities through InvestPak.

On July 6, the SBP said that in order to facilitate the retail and corporate investors, the SBP has formally launched a digital platform namely ‘InvestPak’ through which all investors can directly invest their savings in the government securities in a convenient, efficient and secured way.

“The revised MDR exemption is intended to increase retail participation in the government’s newly launched InvestPak scheme, enabling the government to mobilise funding directly from retail investors while keeping liquidity within the banking system,” said a report of Arif Habib Ltd issued on Tuesday.

Based on our sensitivity analysis, assuming 30 per cent of individual savings deposits qualify for the Rs10m exemption and exempt accounts are repriced at 75bps below the policy rate, we estimate a limited annual EPS impact of approximately 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent for banks, as a base case scenario, it added.

The “InvestPak” platform is accessible to both institutional and retail investors for directly investing their savings digitally in the government securities.

“We do not expect any material liquidity impact, as high-value deposits are likely to either remain with banks at negotiated rates or be invested in government securities through InvestPak, keeping funds within the banking channel,” said the AHL report.

Overall, we expect the exemption to have a neutral to slightly positive impact on banks, supported by manageable earnings implications and limited risk of deposit outflows, it added.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2026