KARACHI: The Roshan Digital Account (RDA) programme has crossed a major milestone and hit the $2 billion mark as overseas Pakistanis continued to pose trust in the central bank initiative that was launched in September last year.
Overseas Pakistanis invested record $2 billion in various products offered by the RDA platform and it will continue to attract more inflows as the central bank is keen to add more investment options for non-resident Pakistanis, experts say.
“As Pakistanis all over the world celebrated country’s Independence Day, #RoshanDigitalAccount crosses the historical milestone of $2bn in deposits. A big thanks to Overseas Pakistanis for their overwhelming response to the RDA initiative,” State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the central bank, tweeted.
Imran Khan inaugurated the RDA service on September 10, 2020 for non-resident Pakistanis to enable them to remotely open bank accounts in Pakistan through online digital portals without physically visiting branches. It is a joint effort of the SBP and the federal government in collaboration with eight commercial banks operating in Pakistan. Later, more banks joined the initiative to facilitate the overseas Pakistani community.
The inflow through Roshan Digital Account reached $1.87 billion at the end of July, with the first month of the current fiscal year witnessing the second highest inflow since the RDA was launched in September last year.
Latest data released by the SBP showed that the country received $307 million in July compared to $310 million in June, reflecting a trend with inflow of over $300 million per month. The inflow through RDA was just $7 million in September 2020 and crossed $2 billion mark on Friday, according to the central bank.
Samiullah Tariq, head of research at Pakistan Kuwait Investment Company, said RDA is a huge success as overseas Pakistanis gave overwhelming response to the central bank initiative.
“The central bank is expected to receive record $3.5 billion inflows through RDA by December. More products are likely to attract overseas Pakistanis to invest in RDA products that will benefit the national economy,” Tariq told Khaleej Times.
Last month, SBP Governor Dr Reza Baqir said the RDA initiative for overseas Pakistanis had generated new financial inflows of $1.8 billion which helped boost the country’s foreign exchange reserves. He said that Pakistan’s reserve buffers are expected to rise by another $2.8 billion in August through the IMF’s planned new global SDR allocation.
Banking experts and analysts were optimistic about the outlook of Roshan Digital Account and said it would continue to attract funds from overseas Pakistanis, especially those based in the Gulf region.
