Google temporarily suspends the purchase of its carrier-paid apps in Pakistan via mobile phone after the central bank shut down the previous mechanism of making payments to the international service providers.
Google temporarily suspends the purchase of its carrier-paid apps in Pakistan via mobile phone after the central bank shut down the previous mechanism of making payments to the international service providers. The Google Play Store’s paid services suspends in Pakistan, despite the Minister of IT’s assurance that the services will continue to available to Pakistani users.
The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecom has confirmed the development, adding that users could pay for the apps through their bank cards.
On Dec 1, Minister said the Ministry of Finance had agreed to release blocked payments to international service providers including Google.
The Ministry of Finance has agreed to release blocked payments to international service providers including Google – a move that will avert looming suspension of paid services of Google Play Store in Pakistan.
Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication stated it while briefing media on his discussion with the relevant authorities.
The minister sprang into action after reports emerged that Google suspends the paid services and would not be available to users in Pakistan from Dec 1 as the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) had blocked $34 million in payments to the international service providers by suspending direct carrier billing (DCB) mechanism.
Later, the central bank rejected media reports about holding certain payments to Google as “baseless and misleading”.
The SBP explained that it had taken some steps to facilitate the domestic entities due to violations committed by Telcos.
The IT minister said the finance ministry had directed the SBP to release payments to the service providers as per the schedule. “The central bank has also been directed to put off the latest policy about payments for paid services of Google Play Store for one month.”
He said Telcos had also been given a month to implement the new procedure for payments in line with the instructions of the SBP.