circular<\/a> on April 14 authorizing regulated financial institutions to open accounts for entities registered with the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA).\u00a0<\/p>\nThis move follows the landmark passage of the Virtual Assets Act 2026 last month, effectively dismantling a restrictive environment that had been in place since an outright ban was imposed in 2018.<\/p>\n
New financial guardrails for crypto<\/h1>\n
State Bank officials clarified that while banks can now service the industry, they are strictly prohibited from using their own capital or customer deposits to trade, hold, or invest in virtual assets.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The central bank\u2019s directive emphasizes that the role of traditional lenders is limited to providing an interface for licensed firms rather than participating in the market themselves.<\/p>\n
To ensure the safety of public funds, the SBP has mandated the use of Client Money Accounts (CMAs). These Pakistan Rupee-denominated accounts must remain entirely separate from a service provider\u2019s own operational funds to prevent commingling.<\/p>\n
Further, to maintain a clear boundary, the SBP noted that \u201cany arrangement with a VASP does not absolve them\u201d of existing obligations, including foreign exchange and anti-money laundering rules.<\/p>\n
Banks also remain tied to existing foreign exchange protocols, as the circular notes that \u201cany arrangement with a VASP does not absolve them of those obligations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Financial institutions must also update their internal risk models to specifically address the volatility and transparency challenges associated with digital assets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Under the new guidelines, banks are required to perform exhaustive due diligence on every licensed provider, including verifying their PVARA credentials and maintaining \u201congoing monitoring\u201d of these relationships.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Any activity flagged as suspicious under anti-money laundering or counter-terrorism financing rules must be reported immediately to Pakistan\u2019s Financial Monitoring Unit.<\/p>\n
The regulatory pivot comes after a period of intense groundwork, including high-level consultations with global exchanges like Binance and HTX in late 2025.<\/p>\n
These discussions focused on attracting regulated trading platforms to a market that already boasts tens of millions of users.<\/p>\n
Beyond retail trading, the government has been investigating blockchain-integrated infrastructure through engagements with affiliates of World Liberty Financial, specifically looking at the potential for stablecoins to streamline cross-border payment systems.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistan has officially ended its long-standing freeze on the digital currency sector by allowing banks to facilitate licensed virtual asset providers. Summary Pakistan\u2019s central bank has ended an eight-year ban…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cryptocurrency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25937,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25935\/revisions\/25937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bitunikey.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}