10/10/2018 State Bank of Pakistan

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Circulars/Notifications - Banking Conduct & Consumer Protection Department

BC&CPD Circular No. 01 of 2018 February 14, 2018

The Presidents/ Chief Executives

All Banks/MFBs

Dear Sirs/Madams,

GUIDELINES ON CALL CENTER MANAGEMENT AT BANKS

Call Center is considered as one of the growing needs of banking industry specially in the wake of digital transformation. Being
cognizant of its functional importance and allied conduct risks, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) undertook a diagnostic review of Call
Center management at banks. The findings of the review show variant Call Center management practices across the industry.

2. In order to ensure consistency and uniformity in efficient management of Call Centers across the industry, banks are advised
to adopt the following measures as per the scope of their Call Centers:

a. Banks should have a comprehensive policy and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on Call Center management.

b. In order to ensure consumer confidentiality, adequate controls should be in place including but not limited to continuous CCTV
vigilance, physical entry and exit checks, non accessibility to portable devices or cell phones, controlled accessibility to printers,
emails, etc. at their Call Centers. Banks should also maintain and monitor comprehensive logs of call agents’ system based
activities.

c. Banks should have an independent reporting line of Call Centers to avoid conflict of interest.

d. Banks should record all inbound and outbound calls and retain the recording in line with the record keeping requirement given
in BC & CPD Circular No. 1 of 2016.

e. Banks should ensure that the consumers are explicitly informed about their calls being recorded at the Call Center. Marketing
of banks’ products/services on incoming consumer calls at their expense is not fair. For marketing, telesales, etc. banks should
make out bound calls or deploy toll free numbers.

f. Banks should have adequate IT controls, contingency set ups and Disaster Recovery Infrastructure for their Call Centers.

g. Banks should ensure adequate IT systems in line with the scope of their Call Centers having options of Interactive Voice
Response (IVR), Automated Call Distribution (ADC), combination of physical and knowledge based authentication tools, etc.
Besides, banks should ensure that IT systems for Call Centers are properly evaluated as per the “Enterprise Technology
Governance and Risk Management Framework” issued vide BP&RD Circular No.5 of 2017.
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h. Banks should assess the performance of their Call Centers on regular basis and may use independent tools like mystery calls,
consumer surveys, employees’ feedback, etc. Further, following parameters/Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) may be adopted
with appropriate benchmarks as per international best practices:

Key Result Areas Parameters/KPIs

Courtesy
Quality Accuracy

Average Handling Time

Ring No answer/ Abandoned Call rate
Productivity First Call Resolution
Average Speed of Answering

Manned hours
Punctuality
Attendance
Attrition rate

i. Banks may preferably develop risk dashboards for periodic reporting to senior management along with a mechanism to escalate
breaches in risk thresholds to the senior management.

j. In case of outsourcing of call centre function or its HR resources, relevant instructions on Outsourcing issued by SBP should
also be complied with.

k. Banks are advised to implement the above guidelines latest by December 31, 2018.

Please acknowledge receipt.

Yours Truly,

Sd/-
(Muhammad Akmal)
Director

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