ISLAMABAD (Eshfak Mughal):- The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has proposed to share the Declaration of Assets of Civil Servants of BS-17 to above with banking companies on the request through authentic channel within five days.
In this regard, the FBR has proposed rules and sought public comments within five days.
According to the proposed rules, they shall apply for sharing of information respect of civil servants in BS 17 – 22 with banking companies.
The bank shall use a pre-notified, secured and single authorized email address and the email account shall be under control and responsibility of the head of compliance of the bank in terms of its authorization, use and security of data being shared. The authorized email account shall be used for request or receipt of simplified declarations. The bank shall communicate to the FBR the credentials of a maximum of four Focal Persons (officials) authorized to communicate with FBR through the authorized email, said in the rules.
The authorized officials of the bank shall submit a declaration to the FBR that he shall maintain secrecy of the information that shall be provided to, and it shall not be divulged to any person.
Before generating request seeking information from the FBR for the customers due diligence (CDD), the banks shall take following steps –
The bank shall determine in writing the reasons for which CDD requires that the information from FBR is to be accessed (the decision of the bank).
The bank shall obtain an express written consent from the civil servant of whom the bank intends to access information from FBR.
The bank shall obtain a certificate from the civil servant as per prescribed format annexed duly signed by the person declaring that he is a civil servant of BS-17 and above, with his complete name, designation, employee number and all other particulars that are prescribed in the format.
The FBR shall provide simplified or abridged information, within five working days through the authorized email, or may refuse in case information is not available or cannot be provided due to any reason. In case of dispute, the decision of FBR shall prevail being custodian of information.
The FBR shall have a dedicated Banks’ CDD desk assigned to an authorized officer supported by designated officials to deal with the information requests from the banks.
The FBR may use other secured electronic access and transmission methods as available from time to time like a dedicated portal page.
The bank shall provide bi-annual feedback on the use of information received by the bank as well as on the outcome of the Customer Due Diligence (CDD) in terms of success of new accounts opened and how the information helped the bank in establishing its client relationship.
Case-wise feedback will be provided by 31st July and 31st of January of every year of preceding six months’ information on the requests of the bank.
The bank shall retain the hard copies of documents and shall produce to the State Bank for the purpose of compliance audit.
The compliance audit shall be undertaken by the SBP once a year unless specifically asked by FBR on the case to case basis.