The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Thursday said that term deposit receipts (TDRs) were issued neither by SME Bank nor any other bank to Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani and Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah and others.
The SBP has initiated an inquiry on a complaint from Secretary to Speaker National Assembly (NA) Sardar Ayaz Sadiq after news items appeared in media regarding issuance of TDRs worth hundreds of millions of rupees from SMEs bank in the name of certain parliamentarians, including Chairman Senate Raza Rabbani, Leader of Opposition in National Assembly Syed Khursheed Ahmed Shah, Leader of Opposition in Senate Ch Aitzaz Ahsan and MNA Maulana Fazalur Rehman.
SBP clarified that the bank issues TDRs only for those of its customers who already have a deposit account with the said bank. It appears that the TDRs have been issued using counterfeit or stolen TDR forms from the bank by some unscrupulous elements to malign the parliamentarians. Further investigation in the matter is underway and will be shared in due course. The SME Bank is also taking up the matter with relevant law enforcement agency for further investigation, the SBP said.