Central Depository Company (CDC) has collaborated with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to allow investors to purchase mutual funds units using SBP’s RAAST Payment Gateway. CDC has developed a framework where it acts as an “Aggregator” and issues a Raast Payment ID, enabling investors to digitally transfer funds, using Raast, to the respective Asset Management Company (AMC) for the purchase of mutual fund units said a news release. The facility was launched in an event at CDC House with Saleem Ullah, Deputy Governor SBP as the Chief Guest. While officiating the event, Deputy Governor SBP, Saleem Ullah expressed his heartfelt appreciation for CDC’s unwavering efforts and initiatives for digitalization and customer facilitation. He emphasized that the core objective of all digitalization efforts is to improve customer convenience and satisfaction. He said that the launch of the RAAST payments facility for Mutual Funds would provide much-needed convenience to mutual fund investors and would be instrumental in increasing the investors’ base. Highlighting the importance of RAAST, the DG SBP said that RAAST will work as the pivot for digitization of the country’s payment system. He said that since its launch in 2021, RAAST has been working smoothly, successfully processing over 1 million transactions daily. To date over 33 million unique RAAST IDs have been created and over 267 million transactions worth Rs.5.4 trillion paid and settled through RAAST. He added that the RAAST Payment-to-Merchant (P2M) feature has been recently launched, which will revolutionize the digital payment landscape in the country. It allows the merchant and vendors to initiate ‘Request-to-Pay’ for their customers enabling the customers to make the payment by just accepting the request. He encouraged the AMCs to provide Raast P2M features to their investors on their mobile applications or portals, enabling them to Pay directly from their registered accounts. He emphasized that this is an untapped area for innovation and designing customer-centric investment products will provide more and better savings opportunities to individual customers. Commissioner SECP, Mujtaba Ahmad Lodhi also honoured the event and remarked, “CDC has been consistently working closely with SECP for formulating and refining the Regulatory framework for the mutual fund industry. It is heartening to witness the successful realization of many such pioneering initiatives by CDC, in collaboration with SBP and SECP, and the steady progress towards market development, greater efficiencies and investor facilitation.” While speaking at the event, the CEO CDC, Badiuddin Akber said, “Implementation of this project is part of CDC’s strategy of constantly striving for new and novel solutions based on technology and innovation to create ease of doing business for investors and market participants (AMCs in this case). We are thankful to both SBP and SECP for their continued support and patronage allowing us to come up with such new tech-based solutions. Chairman CDC, Moin Fudda welcomed the audience and thanked SBP for their continued support in market development endeavors by CDC. The event was also attended by CEO MUFAP, Ms. Mashmooma Zehra Majeed, CEOs and senior executives of the mutual fund industry, all of whom lauded CDC’s efforts in undertaking this initiative and playing its role in market development.