SBP to set up system to access bank transaction data

Dawn reported that the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 has been amended to let the State Bank of Pakistan build and run a secure, centralised virtual repository of banking records. Under the change, banks and electronic money institutions must upload prescribed data on account holders whose deposits or withdrawals exceed Rs100 million in a reporting period, even where banking confidentiality laws apply. The data will be used for algorithmic cross-matching against tax information.

According to the amendment, the information will be processed digitally without being visible to any income tax authority during cross-matching. Only a gross mismatch would be passed to the Board's Compliance Risk Management system, where the National Faceless Centre would take further action. The amendment also defines key terms and sets out confidentiality safeguards, the report added.