Pakistan State Bank Targets Digital Currency by 2025 and Fully Digital Economy by 2030

[Riaz Haq]

A top official of the State Bank of Pakistan, the nation's central bank, announced that the institution aims to issue a digital currency (Central Bank Digital Currency or CBDC) by 2025, according to media reports.   Speaking at the launch of regulations of Electronic Money Institutions (EMIs), central bank officials said that EMIs will be non-bank entities to be licensed by the central bank to issue e-money for the purpose of digital payments.  Pakistan's finance minister Asad Umar and the central bankers said they are targeting Pakistan's economy to go fully digital by 2030.

“As we move towards digital economy, it is absolutely important to ensure cybersecurity,” said the finance minister, according to Dawn newspaper.  Mr. Umar added that even a single high profile incident could cause irreparable loss of confidence to the economy and the banking system.

Deputy Governor Jameel Ahmad of the State Bank of Pakistan told the audience at the EMI launch that the central bank is working on a concept of issuing digital currency by year 2025 to promote financial inclusion and reduce inefficiency and corruption. Moreover, he said, the central bank would adopt evolving-realities of time and would be fully digitized and technology equipped by year 2030.

Cryptocurrencies use blockchain technology. Bitcoin is the name of the best-known cryptocurrency, the one for which blockchain technology was invented. A cryptocurrency is a medium of exchange, such as the US dollar, but is digital and uses encryption techniques to control the creation of monetary units and to verify the transfer of funds. The blockchain is a decentralized ledger of all transactions across a peer-to-peer network. Using this technology, participants can confirm transactions without a need for a central clearing authority. Potential applications can include fund transfers, settling trades, voting and many other issues.

Peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin were often explicitly aiming to disrupt the existing monetary order – central banks will aim for an evolutionary approach. In many ways, central bank digital currencies (CBDC) would simply be the latest in a long line of technological upgrades that central banks have been through over the years, according to ING Bank.

There's a long history of the use of money as a medium of exchange in trade. It started with metal coins in Mesopotamia, then changed to paper currency in China and bank checks (sakks) in Arabia before becoming electronic in modern age.  Here's how International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Christine Lagarde answers the question "should central banks issue a new digital form of money?"

"A state-backed token, or perhaps an account held directly at the central bank, available to people and firms for retail payments? True, your deposits in commercial banks are already digital. But a digital currency would be a liability of the state, like cash today, not of a private firm. This is not science fiction. Various central banks around the world are seriously considering these ideas, including Canada, China, Sweden, and Uruguay. They are embracing change and new thinking—as indeed is the IMF. ...... I believe we should consider the possibility to issue digital currency. There may be a role for the state to supply money to the digital economy. This currency could satisfy public policy goals, such as (i) financial inclusion, and (ii) security and consumer protection; and to provide what the private sector cannot: (iii) privacy in payments".

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[Riaz Haq]

World Bank Report: #Technology is transforming #governance in #Pakistan. 64 million #internet connected #digital-savvy, #Pakistanis are now expecting better digital services from their #government. 
http://tinyurl.com/y2ef4cx2 via @WorldBank

To meet these demands, the Government of Punjab has been working to modernize over the last decade.

As part of the government’s governance reforms, and learning from earlier pilot programs in education and health, the Punjab Public Management Reform Program (PPMRP) has aimed to transform citizens’ experience, improve access to administrative services, and boost public employee performance and the management of public resources.

Before that, Punjab authorities were facing several challenges in delivering public services. This, in turn, impacted social outcomes in the province: the health sector’ performance was affected by the absenteeism of vaccinators, resulting in a low immunization rate in Punjab (49% in 2014).

The education and agriculture departments faced similar absenteeism issues with teachers, students, and agriculture workers in the field.

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Citizens now have easy access to information about institutions, policies, procedures, and investment projects available on the websites of 84 provincial public entities, including government administrative departments, attached bodies, hospitals, and universities. 

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The number of inquiry and feedback calls increased from 50,000 calls received in 2013 to 2.9 million in 2018. Province-wide, 161 citizens’ facilitation centers have been set up to provide selected services under one roof and closer to the citizens – promoting social accountability in Pakistan’s largest province.

PPMRP also helped expedite the online provision (application and processing) of other government services, such as registering a vehicle, paying for stamps, collecting agriculture subsidies, and applying for a government job and college admissions.

Smart management to improve staff performance

The PPMRP also developed smart management tools to help some government departments improve their staff performance and overall user experience. 

For example, smartphone applications and central dashboards helped track and analyze daily more efficiently the activities of hundreds of field workers in the health, agriculture and education departments.

Combined with users’ feedback, this data helped identify low performing areas and take remedial measures.

In the health field, E-VACCS has been instrumental in tackling absenteeism of field vaccinators by locating their daily activity routes (and activities), thereby enabling the management of Health Department to check whether children in remote areas had received their vaccinations. 

As a result, immunization coverage marked a rise from 49 percent in 2014 to 84 percent in 2017.

Similar tools have helped assess staff performance in schools and the agriculture sector and, when applicable, informed remedial actions for improvement.

Digitizing tax collection 

The PPMRP also supported technology solutions to collect taxes better, thus expanding the tax base and improving transparency.

For example, old manual cadasters of urban properties have been digitized and geo-mapped in all 36 districts of Punjab, adding more than 1 million new properties to the tax base.

This system helped issue digital tax invoices and provide an online tax calculator and online property title verification system. Citizens can also now access detailed information about transactions and when their payments are due.

As a result, the urban property tax receipts in Punjab have increased by 115 percent since 2013.

Together, these promising initiatives and reforms have changed the governance landscape in Punjab and brought government services a step closer to citizens.

[Riaz Haq]

5G to establish foundation for #Pakistan's digital economy. #5G #mobile #broadband offers massive potential to boost #DigitalTransformation in #Pakistan as the country has already derived some benefits from digitization, according to the World Bank . https://tribune.com.pk/story/1933011/2-5g-establish-foundation-digi...

Fifth generation (5G) mobile broadband possesses massive potential to boost digital development in Pakistan as the country has already derived some benefits from digitisation, according to a World Bank report titled ‘Pakistan @100: Shaping the Future’.

Although the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) had unveiled a road map for public testing of 5G services in the country this year, delays in its deployment would postpone a revolutionary leap in capacity from 4G to 5G, the report said.

The World Bank in its report revealed that delay in the issuance of 3G and 4G licences, which were eventually completed in 2014, prevented telecom companies from building and upgrading their networks for the provision of data services. Moving forward, “5G networks will establish a robust foundation for a digital economy in the country,” it said. “Although Pakistan has already derived some of the benefits from digitisation, the scope for further growth still remains.”

Quoting figures, the World Bank pointed out that demand for internet access had risen rapidly, from 6 million internet subscribers in 2013 to an estimated 48 million in 2017.

Moreover, Pakistan is the third-largest country providing workers to global online freelancing platforms and from this, it generated approximately $1 billion in export revenues in 2016.

“However, broadband and mobile penetration (basic and data/internet-enabled mobile phones) in Pakistan remains relatively low,” the report said.

It emphasised that further network expansion and quality improvements would improve mobile broadband access and could ensure access to underserved and unserved areas.

Digital development should come with safeguards including national cyber security and personal data privacy, it suggested. At the same time, providing an enabling environment for a competitive and open market for telecom and digital players and digital skills for potential employees was critical to ensuring meaningful uptake of digital solutions,” it continued.

[Riaz Haq]

C/A Deficit = 22%

Trade Deficit = 11%

Imports =6%

External loans(July-March)= 37%

Remittances = 11.8%

Exports = 2%

FDI inflow(excluding china) = 17%

Forex Reserves = than 25/7/2018

Private Sector Credit =

https://twitter.com/MusaVirk18/status/1113832802439450624

[Riaz Haq]

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE > BUSINESS
Trade deficit contracts 11% to $21.5b in eight months

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1928130/2-trade-deficit-contracts-11-2...

Pakistan’s trade deficit contracted over 11% to $21.5 billion in first eight months of the current fiscal year, primarily because of a steep decline in imports but the growth in exports remained sluggish, underscoring the need for a review of the policy of subsidising exporters.

Exports, both on month-on-month and year-on-year basis, fell in February 2019, which put a question mark over the claims made by the Ministry of Commerce while giving huge fiscal incentives to the exporters, especially the textile sector. Despite the fiscal incentives and currency depreciation, the exports stood below $2 billion in February.

Trade deficit that stood at $24.2 billion in July-February FY18 shrank 11% to $21.5 billion in the corresponding period of current fiscal year 2018-19, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported on Tuesday.

[Riaz Haq]

#ImranKhanPrimeMinister chairs meeting on #digitalization of #government processes in #Pakistan. The discussion encompassed transparency and efficiency in government processes using emerging technologies like #blockchain. https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/459262-pm-imran-chairs-meeting-on...

Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday chaired a meeting on digitalization of the government processes and how the latest IT solutions such as blockchain could help ensuring efficiency, transparency, eliminating red-tapism and improving overall service delivery in line with the vision of the Government.

A team of Pakistani IT experts from UAE, invited by Special Assistant to Prime Minister Sayed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari, briefed the Prime Minister on way forward in digitalization of various government processes.


The discussion encompassed transparency and efficiency in government processes using emerging technologies like blockchain.

From among the proposed use-cases, the briefing focused on a next generation trade platform for Pakistan that will usher Pakistan into the next era of trade efficiency with its trade partners.

The Prime Minister in his remarks said that digitalization is critical to ensuring efficiency and transparency in conduct of official businesses.

He said IT solution will help addressing some of the major issues that have hampered steady growth of economy in past.

“The digitalization will also create much needed synergies among the government organizations for ensuring friction-less service delivery and improving ease of doing business in the country,” he added.

[Riaz Haq]

#3G/#4G #Mobile #Broadband Subscribers in #Pakistan Reaches 66.14 Million in March 2019 https://www.phoneworld.com.pk/3g-4g-subscribers-in-pakistan-reaches...


The number of 3G and 4G users in Pakistan reached 66.14 million by end March 2019, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). The number of mobile phone users in Pakistan reached 159.024 million by end-March compared to 156.92 million by end of February, which registered an increase of 2.104 million during the period under review.

Jazz’s total count for 3G users stood at 13.622 million by end-March compared to 13.714 million by end February, registering a decrease of 0.0092 million. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 8.144 million by end February to 8.774 million by end-March.

3G/4G Subscribers in Pakistan
Zong 3G subscribers increased from 8.738 million by end February to 8.764 million by end-March while the number of 4G users jumped from 11.026 million by end February to 11.600 million by end March 2019.

The number of 3G users of Telenor network decreased from 8.851 million by end February to 8.764 million by end-March 2019 i.e. registering 0.087 million. The number of 4G users jumped from 5.569 million by end February to 5.905 million by end-March.

Ufone 3G users decreased from 8.162 million by end February to 7.846 million by end-March registering a decline of 0.316 million. Teledensity for cellular mobile increased from 76.3 percent by end February to 77.17 percent by end-March and broadband subscribers reached 68244373 by end-March compared to 66704731 by end February.

PTA received 13685 complaints from telecom consumers against different telecom operators including (cellular operators, PTCL, LDIs, WLL operators and ISPs) as of March 2019. According to PTA data Jazz (Mobilink + Warid) leads the chart with 3881 complaints and Telenor stands at the second position as the most complained telecom operator with 2738 complaints. PTA said that it was able to get 13676 complaints resolved i.e. 99.93 percent.

Cellular mobile subscribers constitute a major part of the overall telecom subscriber base, therefore, a maximum number of complaints belong to this segment. A total number of complaints against CMOs by February stood at 10684.

In terms of the segregation of complaints on operator basis, a total of 3881 complaints were received against Jazz which is 36.32% of the total CMO related complaints. Telenor, which has the second largest number of consumers, was also second with 2738 i.e. 25.62 percent complaints were received against it. Zong stood third with 2396 complaints i.e. 22.42 percent of total complaints.

Ufone had 1669 complaints against its various services which make up 15.62 percent of the total CMO related complaints. PTA also received 1286 complaints against basic telephony where 1281 were addressed during March 2019. Further 1690 complaints were received against ISPs where 1686 were addressed.


https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/telecom-indicators

[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan currency in circulation up 18.12pc to Rs3.402 trillion

https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/184885-Currency-in-circulation-up-...

KARACHI: Hard currency in circulation – cash in hands – rose 18.12 percent to Rs3.402 trillion as of December 2016 over the preceding year as people were giving preferences to nonbanking transactions. 


The State Bank of Pakistan, in its latest report, showed that currency in circulation (CiC) amounted to Rs2.880 trillion as of December 2015. Currency in circulation jumped to Rs3.34 trillion in the mid of last year.

“Rising currency use, in our view, reflects the falling opportunity cost of holding cash,” said Bilal Khan, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank. “This is due to a combination of falling returns on deposits as a means of saving – due to monetary easing – as well as the incidence of tax on the use of the banking system for certain transactions.”

Last year, the government extended the scope of withholding tax on banking transactions by non-filers of returns. 

Chief Executive Officer Sakib Sherani at Macroeconomic Insights said the volume of currency in circulation and its rapidly-rising trend vis-à-vis both the monetary base as well as deposits in the banking system are indeed worrying signs. 

“This trend goes against the norms of a documented economy and a banking system that is playing an effective role of financial intermediation and inclusion,” Sherani said. “Prima facie it appears that the government’s taxation policy is a major cause for the shift from bank deposits to CiC.”

Pakistan’s informal economy is almost as big as the formal one, perhaps larger. It’s a source for concern for the government as it doesn’t generate revenue to national exchequer. 

“The level of CiC can be taken as a broad proxy for the degree of informalisation of the economy and its trend,” Sherani said. 

Economists are surprised why CiC is surging amid falling inflation and relatively low transactions into the real estate sector after the upward revision in the property valuation and subsequent changes in the tax rules. 

“Though a demand in urban consumption is picking up, yet inflation remains at the lower side,” said Salman Shah, former finance minister.

“We can’t rule out that some currency may be used for all kind of illegitimate activities.” 

Currency in circulation, as percent of M2 and currency-to-deposit ratio, has also been increasing over the last few years. 

Analysts said though banking deposits grew 20 percent in 2016, yet stakeholders need to render more efforts to increase the penetration of formal banking services into the economy in line with the national financial inclusion strategy. Bank deposits rose to Rs11.2 trillion in December 2016 from Rs9.3 trillion in December 2015.

 

[Riaz Haq]

#India’s draft strategy for national #blockchain and #digitalcurrency. Nat'l Blockchain Platform could offer Trust as a Service & enterprise blockchain solutions that add fingerprint-like hashes to public blockchains, monetize IoT data #technology #CBDC https://www.ledgerinsights.com/india-blockchain-strategy-central-ba...

India’s National Institute for Smart Government (NISG) has published its draft National Strategy on Blockchain. It makes ambitious suggestions, including both a central bank digital currency (CBDC) and a national blockchain.

A Central Bank Digital Rupee (CBDR) is proposed on a public permissioned blockchain. India has a track record of rolling out large scale projects with almost 1.2 billion people enrolled in its national digital identity project (Aadhaar). But it has just 582 million bank accounts compared to 1.21 billion mobile connections. So one can see the potential for a digital currency for financial inclusion alone.

However, a significant rationale for the CBDR provided in the document is the ability to monetize Internet of Things (IoT) data and other personal data. Hence people could be compensated for sharing health, telecoms and financial data. “Unlocking the value of the data in the hands of citizens in a secure manner could give a big boost to citizens’ disposable incomes,” the NISG said.

The NISG envisions Indian blockchain developers and firms creating decentralized applications, similar to Ethereum and EOS, but instead on a regulated blockchain with consumer protection.

Hence a National Permissioned Blockchain is proposed, where government departments and industry associations run the validator nodes. It proposes running a private version of Ethereum, perhaps Quorum or a private version of Hashgraph using Proof of Authority. Hedera Hashgraph’s technology is not open source, so that may prove expensive.

This National Blockchain Platform could offer Trust as a Service. It points to some enterprise blockchain solutions that add fingerprint-like hashes to public blockchains. This anchors the current status of a block, making a private blockchain even more tamperproof.

But most of all, it wants the Government of India to signal its intention to use blockchain technology itself and to encourage a vibrant sector.

Apart from these two major suggestions, the document also explores the government and legislative aspects. In particular, India has restrictions on cryptocurrencies. The NISG suggests any legislation around digital currencies should be address functionality as opposed to a specific technology.

The draft document was drawn up following consultations, and now the NISG intends to have further stakeholder discussions and receive suggestions.

[Riaz Haq]

Is COVID-19 Pakistan’s Black Swan Event for Digital Payments?
MAY 1, 2020
Tariq Malik and Alan Gelb

https://www.cgdev.org/blog/covid-19-pakistans-black-swan-event-digi...

As shown by the technical underpinnings of its Ehsaas emergency program, Pakistan has all of the necessary building blocks to roll out its digital payments system and expand access to mobile money. It should seize the opportunity.


The Ehsaas Emergency Cash program was launched at the end of March to distribute funds to 12 million families (an estimated 67 million people) whose livelihood has been severely impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic or its aftermath. Each eligible family is entitled to 12,000 Pakistani rupees (PKR), equivalent to $72.07. As of the end of April, 6.6 million beneficiary families representing some 37 million people had already received the payment, for a total of PKR 79.2 billion ($476 million). Cash can be picked up at 17,000 distribution centers set up nationwide, after biometric authentication against the database of NADRA (the National Database and Registration Authority), which houses the digital identity of 122 million citizens. The program has been an important way to get much-needed cash to those affected, but it also presents an opportunity to advance digital payments in a way that benefits the poor—but only if stakeholders seize the

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Targeting involves screening against a range of databases linked to the ID number, along the lines of the process used in 2012 to identify potential taxpayers. These include the BISP database; the NSER (National Economic and Social Registry) survey conducted in 2010; and analytics on databases covering immigration (travel patterns), civil and public servant payrolls, utility bills, telecommunications subscriptions, vehicle registration and other areas. NADRA also maintains access to a registry detailing relationships between identified individuals, with each family assigned a unique family ID number. Of a total of 146 million SMS requests for assistance, it was reported that the number of unique claimants was 48 million. Over 2 million of the 48 million were found to be invalid, while almost a million more were found to be ineligible due to having government jobs and high scores on the poverty index. The remainder could be sorted into the three beneficiary categories of the program: Female recipients who score below 16 on a 100-point means test (already part of the BISP program); heads of families that score between 16 and 32 (newly added by Ehsaas); and those scoring above this level, who are screened electronically and on the ground by commissioners at the district level. Further screening rejected nearly 14 million of the category 3 applicants, leaving the rest to be checked at the provincial level.

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It is time to expand this sector by removing the barriers. Some positive steps have been taken. The federal government has approved the waiver of 24 percent advance income tax on the commissions of branchless banking retailers. This is a good start, but the provincial governments need to waive the general sales tax of 14-16 percent on commissions to accelerate incentives to expand access to digital money. As other governments have concluded, an investment in digital payments is an investment for the poor. With a fixed line penetration rate of less than 20 percent, mobile is already the preferred platform for half of the country’s 30 million internet users.

The Ehsaas Emergency Cash program offers an opportunity to incorporate mobile payments technology into the implementation of social protection. Could it be the Black Swan event for Pakistan to expand its mobile money market? The question demands the attention of all stakeholders—government, NADRA, BISP, the banks, mobile operators, and their regulators. It would be a pity if Pakistan were to waste this creative moment.

[Riaz Haq]

Crypto terror: Pakistan warns of digital currency crime spike

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1803931/world


Police in Pakistan say the use of digital currencies, including bitcoin, for international terror financing, as well as crimes such as extortion and ransom, is on the rise as authorities move to crack down on illegal methods of money transfer.
Bitcoin is the most common virtual currency and is used as a vehicle for moving money around the world quickly and anonymously via the web without the need for third-party verification.
Militant groups worldwide, including Daesh, are increasingly calling on supporters to donate using the digital currency.
Pakistan recently moved to meet 27 targets set for it in 2018 when the South Asian nation was placed on a Financial Action Task Force (FATF) “grey list” of countries with inadequate controls over terror financing. The task force has urged Pakistan to complete an internationally agreed action plan by February 2021. The next virtual plenary of the task force is scheduled for February 22-25.
“We are seeing this trend (of using bitcoin for crimes) since we tightened the noose around illegal systems of transferring funds,” Raja Umar Khattab, head of the Transnational Terrorists Intelligence Group in Sindh’s counterterrorism police, told Arab News.
Last month, Khattab arrested Hafiz Muhammad Omar bin Khalid, a Pakistani engineering student charged with sending bitcoin donations to militants in Syria.
Khalid had transferred over Rs.1 million ($6,200) when he was caught, according to Omar Shahid Hamid, counterterrorism department (CTD) deputy inspector general.
The student had also previously been arrested, and released, in 2018 for extending financial support to an Al-Qaeda militant in Afghanistan, officials said.
In December 2019, Khalid came across a Telegram account online that guided him on how to help the widows of Daesh militants in Syria.
“Help jihadis and their families by sending money through bitcoin,” said one user on the Telegram group, leading Khalid down a rabbit hole of searches into bitcoin wallets. That, in turn, led him to an associate named Zia Shaikh Turk, based in Hyderabad, who converted cash into bitcoin and sent it off to “jihadi brides” in Syria, according to Hamid.
The Pakistani widow of a militant, whom Khalid identified as Umm-e-Bilal, also asked him to open a mobile wallet account, according to interrogation reports made available to Arab News.
“Umm-e-Bilal asked me to open an EasyPaisa (Pakistani digital payment system) account as some of her acquaintances hadn’t heard of bitcoins, but wanted to contribute,” one intelligence report said, quoting Khalid. “I got Rs. 450,000 into my account, added another Rs. 100,000 of my own, converted them into bitcoin and sent them to Syria.”
Last year, a US citizen of Pakistan origin, Zoobia Shahnaz, was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment for providing material support to foreign militant organizations, specifically more than $150,000 to Daesh.
Shahnaz, 27, from Long Island, admitted to wiring more than $150,000 to individuals and shell entities that were fronts for Daesh in Pakistan, China and Turkey in 2017. She was engaged in a scheme to scam Chase Bank, TD Bank, American Express and Discover by fraudulently obtaining six credit cards, according to a court filing. She then bought more than $62,703 in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and converted them into cash.
An official at the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) told Arab News the unit had received numerous complaints in recent months by victims asked to pay ransom and extortion in the form of bitcoin. The official did not go on the record as he was not authorized to discuss the cases with the media.
“Cryptocurrency has been used in international as well as local cases of extortion, kidnapping for ransom, harassment and money laundering as there is no centralized monitoring system,” the official said.