The Senate Standing Committee on Finance has asked telecom companies to provide full details to understand the reasons behind the increasing charges and to possibly provide relief to consumers.

These days, mobile network companies are also sending excessive promotional SMS messages, which has become a source of frustration for users.

The meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance was held under the chairmanship of Saleem Mandviwalla. The committee reviewed in detail the charges imposed by telecom companies on SMS alerts sent to bank customers.

Officials from the Banking Association and the State Bank gave a briefing during the meeting.

The President of the Bank of Punjab informed the committee that banks charge customers in two ways: regulatory charges and optional charges.

Regulatory charges are mandatory under State Bank instructions, while optional charges apply to additional messages sent with the customer’s consent.

He added that despite providing services, banks are unable to fully recover their costs. Since 2021, charges have increased by 88%, and telecom companies are charging banks heavily.

State Bank officials clarified that customers are not charged for mandatory messages, and banks are required to clearly inform customers about SMS service charges.

According to the State Bank, banks collected a total of 18.7 billion rupees from customers but paid 25.6 billion rupees to telecom companies, meaning banks had to bear a loss of around 7 billion rupees.

Data shows that telecom companies such as Jazz, SCO, Ufone, and Zong have collected billions of rupees in this regard.

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