KARACHI – The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has issued a consolidated framework for customer onboarding, directing banks and regulated entities to provide Digital Payment Acceptance solutions to those engaged in in-store and/or online business/trade activities.
New customer onboarding framework aims to simplify and standardise the account opening process and rationalise the documentary requirements, along with the enablement of digital and convenient interfaces for account opening across different customer touchpoints.
SBP has advised REs to ensure that the turnaround time for new account opening does not exceed two days for the general public. Customers should also be able to track the status of their account opening applications, making the process transparent and customer-friendly.
These measures are in continuation of SBP’s efforts to enhance financial inclusion and improve customer convenience. In recent years, SBP has introduced branchless banking accounts, Asaan accounts, digital onboarding, and specialised account categories for freelancers, recipients of home remittances and overseas Pakistanis.
Making the customer onboarding process more convenient, safe and efficient, customers will now be able to open all types of accounts through digital means.
Further, to facilitate the merchants in acceptance of payments digitally, SBP has advised its REs to equip all merchants – both new and existing – with at least one of the digital payment acceptance solutions such as Raast QR code, Point of Sale (POS), e-commerce/Raast checkout to facilitate customers’ digital payments for in-store and/or online purchases.
To facilitate the onboarding of small merchants and enable them with low-cost digital payment acceptance points, SBP has advised its REs to categorise the merchants as micro, small, and registered merchants.
These initiatives will further improve the regulatory environment for mainstreaming the excluded individuals and businesses into the banking system and digitising the existing large-scale cash-based persons-to-merchants payments. Besides, the framework also provides strong regulatory safeguards aligned with international best practices.