The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has appointed Bank of Punjab (BOP) as it’s agent for collecting provincial receipts and taxes of the government of Punjab (GoP) in a signing ceremony held Monday at the SBP, Karachi.
The appointment is a part of SBP’s strategy to facilitate the federal and provincial governments in improving their tax collection systems. This will diversify tax payment options for the taxpayers, introduce much needed competition in governments’ tax collection business and thus improve the service quality of banks engaged in government tax collection business.
Speaking on the occasion, SBP Executive Director Syed Irfan Ali said, “SBP, being banker to the federal and provincial governments, is fully committed to providing efficient, competitive and state-of-the-art banking services to the governments either by itself or through its agencies across the country.
He expressed optimism that inclusion of BoP will give a big boost to the provincial government’s efforts to facilitate taxpayers in payment of government dues and taxes. He said, based on the experience of BoP, similar arrangements will be made with other provincial governments to collect their taxes through banks of their choice.
BoP President Naeemuddin Khan, speaking on the occasion, thanked SBP for their confidence in collecting the Punjab government taxes. He said the agency agreement with SBP is a major milestone and assured that the customer facilitation and convenience will be the hallmark of the BoP’s agency business, which will set new standards for the industry to follow.
