Eid special: new currency notes black market

A pack of Rs5 notes was on Monday available at a Rs100 premium, a packet of Rs10 notes at Rs125 to Rs150.

LAHORE: The black market in new currency notes, which has been a regular feature of the days leading up to Eid, has picked up momentum, once again, at Fane Road, within a few yards of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Despite the SBP’s ban on sale of new currency notes, the practice goes on unchecked and always turns rampant in the last days of Ramazan.
The purveyors of this ‘business’ are mostly women who position themselves at various spots in the vicinity of the SBP with packs of new currency notes, each pack consisting of 100 notes.  A pack of Rs5 notes was on Monday available at a Rs100 premium, a packet of Rs10 notes at Rs125 to Rs150. There was a ‘surcharge’ of Rs150 to Rs200 on a pack of Rs100 notes.  The rates shoot up as Eid gets closer.
Some of the ‘entrepreneurs’ in this illegal business actually hire help to offer the new currency notes at different rates.  People buy these notes for various reasons: unavailability of new notes in commercial banks is one. Others want to save time and avoid standing in long queues.
Once such buyer, Sultan Khan, told The Express Tribune that the charm of new notes was that it was a tradition on Eid and people loved receiving them.
It is this fondness with crisp new notes that the black marketers take advantage of.
Rashid Ali, a customer at a bank, said that he was going empty handed as bank officials had refused to provide a packet of Rs10 notes claiming they did not have any
left. He accused the staff of various banks of being in league with the black marketeers.
He said that the SBP allowed only one pack of new currency notes of any value to be issued against a computerised national identity card.
“For the issuance of new currency note packets identity cards are collected from those receiving the packets and the record maintained. These notes are then black marketed,” he added.
“I am regular account holder of a private bank and I asked the bank manager to give me new currency notes but he refused telling me that he does not have new notes,” said a customer Javed Ahmed adding that he has to buy new currency notes at higher rates from the black market. “Its Eid and children always ask for new currency notes,” he said.
A spokesperson for the SBP said that the banks have been instructed to issue new currency notes to their account holders. He said new currency notes are available with the banks and if any customer is refused the service by the bank they should send a complaint to the SBP and strict action would be taken.
Humayun Baig, who works at a public bank, said that a large number of branches of commercial banks were designated for issuance of new currency notes to the general public but the staff of these banks was involved in the illegal business
He said that the serial numbers of new currency notes were recorded for the purpose of monitoring their proper distribution and to check their use by currency brokers.
He said that it was the responsibility of law enforcement agencies to stop the sale of new currency notes outside the banks. He said that the SBP had laid out the procedure for the issuance of currency notes for the public.
“The SBP has devised a mechanism to penalise the banks and bankers found involved in any irregularity relating to the issuance of currency notes. It is pertinent to mention that during last Ramazan, an amount of Rs20, 250 million was recovered from certain commercial banks in violation of the SBP’s rules,” he added.
One of the black marketeers near the SBP said: “We buy these new currency notes from dealers in Anarkali. We earn about five to six thousand rupees a month.”