Shafaqna Pakistan: A Senate standing committee meeting has revealed that Pakistani banks pay hundreds of millions of dollars each year to foreign banks in charges for receiving remittances sent to the country.
Senator Saleem Mandviwalla said local banks incur significant costs in fees paid to overseas banks for processing and receiving remittance transactions.
The committee was informed that Pakistani banks were expected to pay around $256 million in such charges during the current fiscal year.
The committee chairman noted that the government had allocated Rs120 billion to banks for this purpose in the previous fiscal year, but no funds had been earmarked for the payments in the current year’s budget.
The deputy governor, however, informed the committee that the government had provided banks with Rs124 billion in fiscal year 2025 and Rs72 billion during the previous fiscal year.
He said that because no funds had been allocated by the government in the current fiscal year, banks would have to bear the charges payable to overseas banks for receiving remittances.
Dr Inayat Hussain said the government had abolished the financial scheme for remittances from fiscal year 2026-27. If banks failed to make payments to overseas banks, people sending remittances to Pakistan could eventually be required to pay the fees.
The committee also expressed concern that rising remittance collection costs could create an additional financial burden for overseas Pakistanis.
Source: Dunya News
