With hundreds of thousands of Pakistani’s working and living in various parts of the world and generating huge sum of money and sending it as remittances back to home country, Pakistani banks as per guidelines from government of Pakistan and State bank; provided a great option to overseas Pakistanis to open bank accounts in various Pakistani banks with the initiative known as Roshan Digital Account. With this new banking facility, overseas Pakistanis are eligible to open their accounts in different currency options (including USD, PKR, EURO, Pounds etc.) by providing necessary documents online.
In this post, we will explain some details about Roshan Digital Account for Overseas Pakistanis and share experience of sending money to Roshan Digital Account from Saudi Arabia.
What is Roshan Digital Account and Why I should Open Roshan Digital Account?
As stated above, Roshan Digital Account is a banking account that overseas Pakistanis can open in a Pakistani bank by filling required forms and providing required documents online and start using banking services. This Roshan Digital Account provides options for overseas Pakistanis to not only start using banking services but also options to invest in various investment schemes like Naya Pakistan Certificates (Islamic Naya Pakistan Certificate or conventional Naya Pakistan Certificate) and also options to invest in various stocks.
Why I should Open Roshan Digital Account and What are the benefits of Roshan Digital Account?
Following are some of the major benefits of Roshan digital account as per my knowledge and reasons that you should think of opening Roshan Digital Account:
* Roshan digital account provides you a safe, legal and convenient facility to transfer your money to Pakistan.
* Roshan Digital Account provides you various currency options and you can save your hard-earned money in a currency of your choice to mitigate depreciation impacts.
* With Roshan digital account you can invest in various investment options conveniently.
* Roshan digital account provides convenient way to repatriate money to foreign account.
* There is no minimum balance condition and you are not forced to keep any specific minimum amount in your account to keep it operational.
* You can use your Roshan Digital Account to pay utility bills and your are provided with cheque book, debit card and online banking facility to perform transactions.
How Much Fees to Send Money in Roshan Digital Account from Saudi Arabia?
I will share my personal experience of sending USD to my USD Roshan Digital Account in Samba Pakistan. I visited Samba Saudi Arabia branch to send USD to my Samba Pakistan Roshan Digital Account. I filled required form by providing account details, SWIFT, IBAN etc. and I was charged about 37 Saudi Riyal as service charges and on top of that about 6 Saudi Riyal as tax so a total of about 43 Saudi Riyal were charged by bank.
Other than fees charged by bank as services charges and VAT, I was charged 22 USD by intermediate bank and for the 1000 USD that I sent, I received 978 USD in my Roshan Digital USD account after 2 days.
According to a PDF sheet available on Samba website, I observed that intermediate bank charges flat 50 USD for any amount sent more than 25K Saudi Riyal. So a friend of mine sent 20K USD and he was charged 50 USD by intermediate bank on top of 43 SAR charged by Samba.
So the advice is to send bigger amounts once instead of sending smaller amounts multiple times as you will end up paying more fees and intermediate bank charges if you send multiple times.
Please note that above information is based on personal experience and fees and intermediate bank charges may be different for different banks and on later times so it is always recommended to check with your bank before making transaction.
Please share your experience of using Roshan Digital Account and your experience of transferring money to Roshan Digital Account from Saudi Arabia in the below comments section for the benefit of other readers.