Islamabad: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) has introduced a comprehensive framework for digital lenders to offer innovative products such as buy now, pay later services, employer-integrated earned wage access, etc. The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, in partnership with industry stakeholders, conducted a comprehensive review of the current framework to promote innovation and ensure consumer protection. After serious concerns by the digital lending Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs) that the operational framework has to be rationalised, the SECP has issued a new Circular 12/2024 that has also consolidated the requirements of Circulars 15/2022, 10/2023, and 15/2023. The…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
KARACHI: The foreign exchange reserves of both State Bank and commercial banks shot up during the week ending on May 10, the central bank reported on Thursday. Reserves held by commercial banks showed a bigger jump than those with the State Bank, going up by $152 million to $5.491 billion, while the SBP’s reserves rose by $15m to $9.135bn. During the current month, the central bank received $1.1bn from the IMF as the last tranche of a $3bn Stand-By Arrangement. It pushed up the total reserves by more than $9bn. The IMF was willing to see the reserves above $9bn…
ARACHI: Due to the impact of climate change and low production, exporters have reduced this year’s mango export target to 100,000 tonnes from 125,000 tonnes last year. Mango production has declined for the third year in a row. Pakistan produces 1.8 million tonnes of the fruit, with the lion’s share of 70pc coming from Punjab, followed by Sindh with 29pc and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with 1pc. Due to weather effects, mango production in Punjab is expected to be 35-40pc this year, while less than 20pc in Sindh. As a result, the total production is feared to be reduced by 600,000 tonnes.…
PARIS: Scientists have discovered a long-buried branch of the Nile river that once flowed alongside more than 30 pyramids in Egypt, potentially solving the mystery of how ancient Egyptians transported the massive stone blocks to build the famous monuments. The 64-kilometre-long river branch, which ran by the iconic Giza pyramid complex among other wonders, was hidden under desert and farmland for millennia, according to a study revealing the find on Thursday. The existence of the river would explain why the 31 pyramids were built in a chain along a now inhospitable desert strip in the Nile Valley between 4,700 and…
IRVINE: Police ‘took back’ control of a lecture hall, from pro-Palestinian protesters. They had occupied the building at the University of California, Irvine, for ‘some hours’. Police then went on to clear a student encampment that stood for more than two weeks, according to witnesses. Officers from around 10 nearby law-enforcement agencies converged on the campus after university officials requested their ‘help’. Protesters had occupied the lecture hall, leading the school to declare it as a “violent protest”, police and university officials said. Approximately four hours later, police ejected the protesters from both the lecture hall and the plaza that…
NEW DELHI: India’s main opposition party on Thursday condemned Prime Minister Narendra Modi for anti-Muslim comments in election campaign speeches that have heightened concerns over sectarian tensions in the world’s biggest democracy. Modi remains popular across much of India and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is widely expected to win this general election when it concludes in early June. Since voting began last month, the 73-year-old premier has stepped up his rhetoric targeting India’s main religious divide in a bid to rally voters. He has referred in campaign rallies to Muslims as “infiltrators” and claimed the main opposition Congress party would redistribute the…
JERUSALEM: At a field hospital that has become one of Gaza’s main trauma centres, a doctor who has worked in a dozen war zones described the situation as the most “catastrophic” he had ever seen. “It is devastating,” said Javed Ali, International Medical Corps’s head of emergency response in Gaza. Speaking to this news agency from a field hospital northwest of the areas of Rafah ordered evacuated by Israel, he said the situation around the far-southern city was “dire”. The hospital, in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi which Israel has designated a “humanitarian zone”, has swelled in a matter of…
BANGKOK: Thailand may have to consider relocating its capital Bangkok because of rising sea levels, a senior official in the country’s climate change office said on Wednesday. Projections consistently show that low-lying Bangkok risks being inundated by the ocean before the end of the century. Much of the bustling capital already battles flooding during the rainy season. Pavich Kesavawong, deputy director-general of the government’s department of climate change and environment, warned that the city might not be able to adapt with the world on its current warming pathway. “I think we are beyond the 1.5 (degrees Celsius) already,” he said,…
BRUSSELS: Fifteen EU states want “new ways” to handle irregular migrants, including sending some to third countries, in a demand made as the bloc plots out how to implement a recently adopted overhaul of its asylum rules. The countries presented their joint stance in a letter dated May 15 to the European Commission, which was made public on Thursday. It was sent less than a month before European Parliament elections across the 27-nation European Union, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains. Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the…
MANAMA / RAFAH: The Arab League on Thursday called for a UN peacekeeping force in the Palestinian territories, even as Israel vowed to “intensify” its ground offensive in Rafah, in defiance of global warnings. In its final statement following a meeting in Manama, the 22-member group called for “international protection and peacekeeping forces of the United Nations in the occupied Palestinian territories” until a two-state solution is implemented. It also adopted calls by host Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas to “convene an international conference under the auspices of the UN, to resolve the…
