Islamabad, Sep 18: Easypaisa has been taking Rs. 99 out of users’ accounts who fail their biometric verification with NADRA without providing a regulatory explanation. One person told media that they were repeatedly charged this amount following unsuccessful attempts to match their fingerprints.
Users get the following notification when their verification attempt fails:
Your fingerprints and your CNIC from NADRA could not be matched. Please make sure that the background of your fingerprint scan is clear when you scan your own. You can visit your nearest merchant to have your account biometrically confirmed. A 99-rupee fee was taken out of your account.
This is how the message appears.
This fee doesn’t seem to have a clear regulatory justification. Media contacted Easypaisa to inquire about the situation, but they haven’t responded as of yet. We will update as soon as the corporation releases a statement.
Last year, Easypaisa surreptitiously started charging Rs. 15 for monthly SMS alerts, raising questions about whether the company was following the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) directives. SBP ordered all banks and microfinance organizations to offer free SMS and email warnings for all digital transactions, both domestic and foreign, in a circular published in January 2022.
These notifications had to be sent out right away following the completion of transactions. Users are nevertheless charged for SMS alerts in spite of this. A lot of people have complained about notification delays, which makes tracking transactions difficult. Customers can speak with an operator at 3737 to cancel their subscription to SMS alerts; however, most users find this process to be “unnecessarily complicated.”
