Pakistan halts overseas payments for online gaming and other apps

Army rejects claims about Gen Bajwa, family's assets; PTI Senator arrested for tweets against military officials

Pakistan has halted payments for in-app purchases including online video games bought by local customers using airtime from telecommunications companies, the latest sign of distress caused by the country’s depleted foreign-exchange reserves.

Telecom service providers were violating regulations by allowing payments to be made for customers under an arrangement with the government that permitted the phone companies to pay for IT-related services for their own use, State Bank of Pakistan said in a statement. The regulator has stopped the transactions and had asked telecom operators to resubmit their requests.

Meanwhile, The Pakistan Army finally broke its silence on Sunday to reject reports that its outgoing chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa's family members and relatives became billionaires during his six-year tenure, terming them as “misleading” and based on “blatant lies.” 

Gen Bajwa, 61, is scheduled to retire on November 29 after getting a three-year extension.

Amidst this, Pakistan authorities on Sunday arrested a Senator of Imran Khan-led Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) party for allegedly using abusive and threatening language against senior military officials.

Azam Swati was taken into custody by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for the second time in less than two months for tweets against army leaders. He was previously arrested by the FIA in October.

The country’s economy is dealing with various pressures including a dollar shortage and a downgrade by rating agencies further into junk. The nation’s forex reserves cover about one month of imports, less than the three-month benchmark.

Pakistan has been restricting overseas payments and imports to deal with its shortage of the US currency.