Facilitation of Home Remittances
State
Bank of Pakistan has an active agenda to continuously analyze
global scenario related to remittances and take all necessary
steps to remove barriers to the flow of remittances, and
improve access to banking facilities to overseas Pakistanis
and their families. In order to achieve these objectives,
the State Bank, Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Overseas
Pakistanis are jointly making efforts under Pakistan Remittance
Initiative (PRI).
One of the major impediments to the flow
of remittances through formal channels is insufficient marketing
efforts at the originator end aimed at providing information
about the remittance channels and other facilitation to
overseas Pakistanis. In order to address this issue, it
has been decided to encourage overseas entities, having
specific Home Remittances related arrangements with banks
in Pakistan, to make additional efforts to facilitate remittances
flow through formal channels. Under the auspices of PRI,
a performance based scheme has been developed to encourage
overseas entities to enhance marketing efforts at origination
end. Government of Pakistan (GOP) shall reimburse marketing
expenses through SBP as tabulated below:
Remittances
Mobilized by an Overseas Entity from any One Particular
Jurisdiction (in Equivalent US$) |
Marketing
Expenses Reimbursement (as % of Remittances Mobilized
- in Equivalent US$) |
Upto
100 million |
Nil |
Above
100 million to 400 million |
0.50
% on incremental amount (i.e. on remittances above 100
million). |
Above
400 million to 800 million |
0.75
% on incremental amount (i.e. on remittances above 400
million), plus amount calculated in the above slab.
|
Above
800 million to1,200 million |
1
% on incremental amount (i.e. on remittances above 800
million), plus amount calculated in the above slab.
|
Above
1,200 million |
1%
on total remittances mobilized. |
The
above scheme shall be subject to the following conditions:-
a.
The scheme will be applicable to those entities who offer
free remittance services under scheme of reimbursement of
TT charges as per our FE Circular Letter No. 40 dated November
29, 2000.
b. The above mentioned incentives will be given on country-wise
performance of the overseas entities.
c. The overseas entities will be required to submit a detailed
marketing plan to the respective banks with which they have
Home Remittance related arrangements.
d. The scheme will be applicable to those overseas entities
which have in Pakistan arrangements with banks only and
if any overseas entity itself or any of its affiliated concern
is found involved in effecting remittances through channels
other than banking sector in Pakistan then such entity will
not be entitled for reimbursement under the scheme.
e. For the entities already effecting remittances through
banking channels, their target would be 25% more than what
they channeled during the period from October 01, 2008 to
September 30, 2009 to qualify for the above scheme (for
the entities which started operations during the above-referred
period, their respective targets will be calculated by spreading
their existing performance to the whole 12 months).
f. Only those entities will be eligible for reimbursement
under the scheme which has satisfactory compliance status
as regard to AML/KYC policies to be ensured by the bank
entering into agreements.
g. The scheme shall be for one year initially and overseas
entities will be reimbursed at the end of the scheme year
based on actual performance as assessed by SBP.
h. The starting date for evaluating the performance would
be October 01, 2009 and their performance shall be evaluated
on the amounts mobilized till September 30, 2010.
i. The performance of overseas entities in terms of home
remittances affected shall be reported by banks to (PRI)
SBP on monthly basis.
j. The scheme shall run concurrently with any other scheme
previously announced by SBP and currently in force.
The Authorized Dealers are advised to bring the above scheme
to the knowledge of all overseas entities having home remittances
related arrangement with them.