The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, through its AML Department, worked with the National Clearing Company of Pakistan Limited to conduct a three-day industry training on IBAN authentication through RAAST, aimed at helping regulated entities move toward faster and simpler customer onboarding. The training was delivered as a webinar and focused on building a shared understanding across the industry of how IBAN validation works when integrated into the account opening process through RAAST, Pakistan’s instant payment system.
Around 286 participants took part in the session, drawn from non-banking finance companies, insurance companies, and securities brokers, giving the training a broad reach across some of the regulated entities that rely on IBAN verification as part of their customer onboarding processes. Bringing these different types of institutions into the same training reflects how IBAN authentication through RAAST is meant to function as a shared verification mechanism across multiple sectors under SECP’s oversight, rather than being limited to a single category of regulated entity.
SECP said the initiative is intended to simplify customer onboarding by making IBAN validation faster and more seamless, reducing friction in a step that has traditionally required manual verification and back-and-forth between institutions and customers when opening new accounts. By walking participants through how the validation process works in practice, the training is meant to help regulated entities implement IBAN authentication consistently once it is adopted more broadly across the sectors represented in the session.
No specific timeline was given for when IBAN authentication through RAAST will become a standard or mandatory part of onboarding across these sectors, and SECP did not indicate whether additional training sessions are planned for other categories of regulated entities. The regulator described the training as part of its broader effort, alongside NCCPL, to make financial services simpler and more convenient for both institutions and their customers as digital onboarding processes continue to expand across Pakistan’s financial sector.
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