Finance ministry releases payments to international service providers.
SBP suspended payments to int’l service providers, including Google.
Paid Google Play apps will not be suspended, IT minister says.
Following the Ministry of Finance’s decision to allow blocked payments to overseas service providers, including Google, on the advise of IT Minister Aminul-Haque, Pakistan avoided the suspension of paid Google Play app services on Thursday.
A $34 million payment suspension by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to foreign service providers might have prevented inward mobile users from downloading paid Google Play Store services using their cell balance as a source of payment starting on December 1, 2022.
After the SBP stopped using the direct carrier billing (DCB) mechanism, a $34 million payment to foreign service providers like Google, Amazon, and Meta was put on hold.
Using their mobile phone carrier bill as a form of payment, users of the DCB online mobile payment system can make purchases.
Customers of telecommunications firms can buy these items using airtime and send money abroad to pay for IT-related services.
However, Tariq Bajwa, the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Finance, got in touch with Haque and expressed his thoughts on the payments that had been halted.
The Finance Ministry agreed to distribute the payments on schedule, the IT minister later confirmed.
Insisting that “paid Google Play apps will not be blocked in Pakistan,” he said that the Finance Ministry had instructed the SBP to postpone for one month the execution of the policy that had suspended payments.
He stated that the payment method must be implemented by telecom companies within a month.
According to the IT minister, the ministry has written to the finance minister, Ishaq Dar, requesting a timeline for the implementation of the telecom operators’ request for help from the government. Haque commended Dar and Bajwa for their prompt judgement.
