Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday said the government was fully supportive of transition from the traditional to the digitalized system of banking and assured full support in financial inclusion of the same.
He was addressing the International Conference on Branchless Banking under the aegis of State Bank of Pakistan here. Dar furthered that concerted efforts are needed to drive branchless banking usage through mobile wallet payments, digitized G2P payments, and improved range of digital financial services available for usage via branchless banking. He expressed the interest to personally steer the initiative through the newly created National Financial Inclusion Council to assign the much needed priority to this issue.
He said he strongly desired an end to long queues of pensioners and wished that the whole process is managed under the new IT-enabled system. Payments to cotton, sugarcane and rice farmers could also be facilitated likewise, he added. The finance minister called upon the Governor State Bank to have a robust mechanism to address people’s grievances. He also emphasized active role of Banking Ombudsman to improve the system.
He informed that the draft bill for controlling cyber crime and terrorism funding was in final stage and would be presented in the parliament for approval in next couple of months. “The approval of the bill would help boost security for mobile and internet banking and also help in controlling funding for terrorist activities”, Dar concluded. -APP
