Naya Pakistan Certificate (NFC) is fixed income security offered digitally by the Government of Pakistan under NPC Rules 2020 framed under Public Debt Act, 1944. It is a sovereign security denominated in US Dollars, and Pak Rupees issued with full faith and credit of the Government of Pakistan. The NPCs are available in five maturities, namely, 3-month, 6-month, 12-month, 3-year and 5-year, with some profit rates per annum.
Revising the Rates
Currently, the government has decided to enhance the profit rates of Naya Pakistan Certificates and its Islamic version by over 5% on different holding periods. The profit rates on the certificates have seen a maximum rise from 13.5% to 15.5%. The enhanced profit rates for different holding periods are:
The main aim to revise the profit rates is to provide lucrative rates of return to overseas Pakistanis and attract foreign exchange inflows into the country through ‘Roshan Digital Accounts’ (RDAs).
Increase in Foreign Inflows
According to the State Bank of Pakistan, the overall inflows coming through RDA accounts surged to $5 billion. The number of accounts maintained by Pakistani expatriates also soared to 456,732 across 175 countries by August 2022 (A.Rehman, 2022). The overall investment made in the government-guaranteed issues surged to $3.185 billion including $1.66 billion in the NPC (A.Rehman, 2022).
Role of SBP
The State Bank of Pakistan is making efforts to further increase the foreign inflows by introducing the ‘Roshan Business Account’ in near future to provide enhanced facilities to overseas Pakistanis for doing business and investments in Pakistan. The central bank is also working to launch products such as pension, insurance and Takaful under RDA. Besides, the number of banks will be increased in the coming days and a dedicated portal for complaints management will be launched.
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