Claim: A recent report claimed that the Central Directorate of National Savings (“National Savings”), the state-owned savings bank of Pakistan, has bumped up profit rates on various government schemes.
Fact: The increase in National Savings’ profit rates mentioned in the report in fact came about in July 2020 and is not a recent development. However, the current rates, as of reporting time, are higher than those in July 2020.
The National Savings promotes financial savings in the economy through various profit-earning schemes and generates “requisite funds for the Government to finance the budgetary deficit and infrastructure projects”, according to its website. It currently boasts a portfolio worth over PKR 3.4 trillion.
On 9 November 2021, Soch Fact Check received a link to a news report claiming that “good news” has been announced for pensioners in Pakistan. The report was published with the following headline:
“پنشن میں اضافے کے بعد پنشنرز کو ایک اور بڑی خوشخبری سنادی گئی”
[After the increase in pensions, another great good news was announced to the pensioners]
The report claimed that the National Savings has recently hiked up profit rates on different government schemes, including the Behbood Savings Certificate (BSCs), Pensioners’ Benefit Account (PBA), Shuhadas Family Welfare Account (SFWA), Defense Savings Certificates (DSCs), and the Regular Income Certificates (RICs). The report further alleged that the rate of return on the Short Term Savings Certificates (STSCs) has been slashed.
Screenshots of Facebook posts by ‘Pak News Network’, which shared the NNTV report four times — on 22 July 2021, 31 August 2021, 24 September 2021, and 24 October 2021
According to a CrowdTangle analysis, multiple news-gathering websites have carried this same story at various points over the past year. Soch Fact Check has previously written about such news-gathering websites here.
On 24 October 2021, two Facebook pages, ‘Pak News Network’ and ‘Urdu News Network’, shared a similar report by NNTV. A couple of weeks later, The News 100 — the website that carried the news report Soch Fact Check received for verification — also posted the story, receiving close to 2,000 likes and over 120 shares.
Over the past month, reports carrying the story have received 4,962 interactions across 56 posts. Further expanding the search to include the 12-month period prior to 10 November 2021 revealed that over the past year the news has attracted 10,150 interactions across 78 posts.
Other Facebook pages also shared the report in question
‘Pak News Network’ had shared the NNTV report four times — on 22 July 2021, 31 August 2021, 24 September 2021, and 24 October 2021 — with the posts gaining significant traction. The post from 22 July 2021 is performing a whopping 116 times better than other similar posts.
The National Savings has indeed increased profit rates for its schemes but the changes mentioned in the recent reports took place in July of last year.
The reports are misleading as they do not make clear that the changes to profit rates took place last year, instead characterising the development as new or impending. The reports also note that a PKR-2000 increase in monthly pensions “will take effect from January 1, 2020”, further confirming that the news is outdated.
The reports also mentioned (in Urdu) that a PKR-2000 increase in monthly pensions ‘will take effect from January 1, 2020’, further confirming that the news is outdated.
Entering the search term “Behbood has been increased from 9.84 to 9.96%” — a portion of the text from The News 100’s report — on Google turns up stories on the topic from July 2020.
In July 2020, the Board of the Employees’ Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) ratified an “upward revision of Rs 2,000 in pensions”, which “was to take effect from Jan 1, 2020”, according to a report published in The News.
Soch Fact Check also found that the specific profit rate changes mentioned in the reports in question are outdated.
The report claimed that profit rates for BSCs, PBA, SFWA, DSCs, and RICs were increased from 9.84% to 9.96%, 9.84% to 9.96%, 9.84% to 9.96%, 8.05% to 8.11%, and 7.44% to 7.60%, respectively. The report further added that the rates of return on STSCs for three-, six-, and 12-month maturities have been reduced from 7.72% to 6.8%, 7.36% to 6.76%, and 7.30%. 6.66% respectively.
According to the latest profit rates available on the National Savings website, from 21 January 2021 to this date, the profit rate for BSCs, PBA, and the SFWA is 11.28%, while the rates of return for DSCs and RICs have been fixed at 9.51% and 9% since 3 March and 21 January 2021, respectively.
With regard to the cuts in the STSCs’ profit rates mentioned in the report, the rates for three, six, and 12-month maturities have been fixed at 6.80%, 7.00%, and 7.35%, respectively, since 3 March 2021.
Conclusion: The profit rates on National Savings Schemes were increased in July 2020, not recently. The current profit rates for BSCs, PBA, SFWA, DSCs, RICs, and the three-, six-, and 12-month STSCs differ from those mentioned in the reports.