The use of banking apps and sites for carrying out day-to-day transactions has considerably increased. However, it has been noted that in cases of service outages, customers are not properly informed in a timely manner, due to which they face issues with transactions.
Now, in order to ensure that customers are informed about service disruptions due to any scheduled or unforeseen activity, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has issued fresh instructions to facilitate the customers of the financial institutions.
According to the most recent instructions, banks must now notify customers and the SBP of any planned activity that may result in service disruptions.
Financial institutions are required to inform customers at least two days in advance through SMS alerts, social media platforms, and in-app notifications, while SBP will be notified at least one week in advance for any maintenance activity.
SBP, as part of its oversight responsibility, will regularly monitor the availability of digital channels itself.
Monthly cumulative downtimes must be reported to SBP. The central banks shall be apprised of the actions taken by the relevant bank to avoid inconvenience in the future if the unforeseen outage exceeds three hours each quarter.
