Pakistan Opens Banking Access for Crypto Firms After 8-Year Ban

Pakistan's State Bank (SBP) issued a circular on April 14 allowing banks to open accounts for licensed virtual asset service providers (VASPs). An eight-year prohibition is lifted. The legal basis is the Virtual Assets Act 2026, signed in March.

The 2018 ban is over

In 2018, Pakistan banned banks from any dealings with crypto exchanges or their clients. Crypto-related businesses were cut off from the banking system entirely. Eight years passed.

The Virtual Assets Act 2026, signed in March, created PVARA (the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority) as the licensing and oversight body. The new SBP circular completes the picture: a firm gets a PVARA license, then gets a bank account.

What banks can do - and what they cannot

Banks open separate Pakistani rupee accounts for each VASP, called Client Money Accounts (CMA). Client funds must be kept separate from the exchange's own assets. Commingling is banned.

• Banks serve licensed VASPs but take no responsibility for crypto transactions
• Investing, trading or holding crypto with own funds is prohibited
• Full KYC/AML due diligence on every VASP is required before onboarding
• Suspicious transactions must be reported to Pakistan's Financial Monitoring Unit (FMU)

Binance, HTX and stablecoins: who is already in talks

In December 2025, Pakistan held discussions with Binance and HTX on attracting regulated trading platforms to the country. Both exchanges were already negotiating entry terms.

Separately, talks are ongoing with affiliates of World Liberty Financial on using USDT and other stablecoins for cross-border payments. Crypto as a remittance and settlement tool is a distinct use case the country is exploring alongside retail exchange access.

240 million people and a big remittance market

Pakistan is one of the world's most populous countries, with large overseas remittance flows from the diaspora. The crypto market operated in a grey zone for years - the ban was not difficult to work around in practice. Legalization gives exchanges legal cover and gives the regulator visibility over flows.

Asian regulators are following a similar path: ban, then licensing, then banking access. The UAE, Singapore and Japan went through the same steps earlier. Pakistan is doing the same, with one key difference - banks are kept as service intermediaries only, not as market participants.