The central bank’s foreign exchange reserves plummeted by almost half a billion dollars during the week that ended on June 16, making the country’s external account more vulnerable. The State Bank on Thursday said it had to pay $482 million during the week as debt servicing, which brought down its total reserves to just $3.536 billion — the lowest level since mid-February. However, it insist
A bearish rampage took hold of the Pakistan Stock Exchange on Wednesday as the benchmark index dropped because of reduced investors’ confidence. Topline Securities said no positive development took place on the front of the International Monetary Fund programme, which hurt investors’ sentiments. In addition, continuous institutional selling in the run-up to the end of 2022-23 kept the overall m
The government on Wednesday raised over Rs2.4 trillion through the auction of treasury bills, collectively borrowing Rs4.6tr in the last seven days. On Wednesday it picked up Rs2.276tr through T-bills and Rs33bn through non-competitive bids.The banks offered bids of Rs3.3tr against the auction target of Rs2.25tr. The cut-off yields were almost the same but the highest amount of Rs2.222tr was
The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Wednesday issued revised regulations for electronic money institutions (EMIs) for enhancing outreach and scope of the innovative fintech-enabled payment companies. The updated regulations now allow EMIs to offer their customers, including minors and freelancers, increased monthly wallet limits along with offering new payment services such as Payments Aggregat
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has detected a reputed company evading billions of rupees in sales tax through the use of illegal credit notes. On June 20, the Directorate of Intelligence and Investigation (Inland Revenue) in Lahore recovered sales tax amounting to Rs1.358 billion and a default surcharge of Rs26 million. An official announcement of the FBR released on Wednesday said that