ISLAMABAD – PTI government to launch unprecedented initiative for investorsand brokers community, it has been revealed.
In a major move to facilitate investors, the government is all set tolaunch a digitized platform for investors/brokers community from the firstweek of April 2019.
Chairman Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) FarrukhSabzwari, while talking to the media, said that National Clearing Companyof Pakistan Limited is scheduled to launch the Centralised Know YourCustomer Organisation (CKO) from the first week of April 2019, which willmake account opening, closing and shifting from one broker to another easy.
The CKO Regulations were finalized in 2017, the regime has yet to beimplemented mainly due to resistance from the brokers, as they fear thattheir clients would easily shift to another broker. Besides, the CKO willalso streamline several flaws related to money laundering laws in the stockmarket.
Sabzwari said, “The opening of an account with the brokers will be madeeasy as there will be biometric verification of the client anywhere in thecountry, which will make opening the account easy.” He added,
After the centralized biometric data with NPCCL, checking the clients”working with any brokers will be easy for the regulatory bodies.
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However, the clients will also benefit as the KYC process will have to beperformed only once and if the customer shifts brokers, the central data atNCCPL would be used to fill the KYC form with the other brokers.
Under the CKO regime, the trading account opening form and sub-accountopening form will be merged into a standardized and simplified CustomerRelationship Form (CRF).
In the first phase, the NCCPL will provide centralized KYC services to thebrokerage and mutual fund industry and in the second phase, the same willbe extended to the investors of the commodity market and insurance sector.
There will be no duplication in the KYC form and CRF, while the requirementof bank verification has been deleted in the CKO.
