Defense

To combat the potential spread of COVID-19 pandemic by limiting person-to-person interaction and to provide ease of services to the customers, State Bank of Pakistan has said that commercial banks may allow corporate and priority customers to use scanned images of cheques along with relevant details of the beneficiary either through registered emails or through mobile Apps of their banks, to push funds from their accounts to the payee bank. However, such an arrangement must be duly agreed with the customer under proper terms and conditions along with complete disclosure of risks and liabilities. The Paying/Drawee bank shall implement all necessary controls including call back confirmation or multifactor authentication to ascertain the authenticity and genuineness of the instrument and identity of the payee. Upon satisfactory validation, the paying/drawee bank may transfer funds to the beneficiary bank using MT 102 of RTGS (PRISM). SBP further said that banks should also implement ad..

Minister for Planning Development & Special Initiatives Asad Umar chaired a video conference to review the situation and consider proposals relating to the management of supply chains of essential commodities, during the partial or complete shutdown in various parts of the country. The meeting discussed proposals for ensuring the continued operation of various industries, especially those included in the food and medicine supply chains, during the Covid-19 emergency. Matters related to the continued supply of electric power and petroleum products were also discussed. It was decided that detailed safety guidelines for the workers will be outlined for those industries, which are required to be kept operational to ensure the supply of essential commodities. The guidelines will be implemented in collaboration with industry associations. The meeting directed the Ministry of Industries to closely monitor any issues faced by the industries identified for continued operation and address the..

Coronavirus has wreaked havoc all around the world. The pandemic has triggered a major economic crisis that will burden our societies for years to come. Bank customers that own credit cards are struggling to make their due payments in the wake of multiple issues with online payments. A majority of credit card users are avoiding visiting branches but are trying to use digital banking channels for the payments against the credit they used within the deadline. A credit card user of Standard Chartered was unable to pay his bill through Askari Online banking. When contacted, Standard Chartered bank stated that there was no such problem in their system. If the issue is not fixed, the customer of this bank is likely to pay extra charges on the account of markup and financial charges. Banks in Pakistan usually give a maximum of 20 days to avoid markup to their customers with some banks giving 15 days. A section of customers who did not receive their salaries or got laid-off by their emplo..

There has been a boom in popularity of cloud gaming with Google Stadia, Geforce Now, Project xCloud and a number of others joining the fray and eliminating the need for having a powerful gaming PC or console. Chinese tech giants Huawei and Tencent are now working together to enter the cloud gaming market as well according to Tencent, one of the world’s biggest game companies. Additionally, the statement mentions that the collaboration between the two will involve tapping into Huawei’s Kunpeng processor to work with Tencent’s cloud gaming platform known as GameMatrix. The two brands will also explore the possibilities of applying artificial intelligence and other technologies for augmented reality (AR) based gaming. Huawei’s hardware expertise combined with Tencent’s experience in the gaming industry will make for a formidable partnership that could give the competition a run for its money. GameMatrix will debut in China first and will likely stay exclusive to the region for a while..