KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan has directed all banks to establish specialised cash processing centres (CPC) having state-of-the-art cash-processing machines and storage facilities to issue machine authenticated and sorted cash.The banks can have the requisite cash processing facilities alternately at their cash feeding branches and/or can make arrangements with other banks/CPCs to get their cash processed. State Bank of Pakistan has issued comprehensive instructions for modernising cash management function of banks. The instructions are part of a strategy for transforming the cash management function from manual to automated environment and improving the quality of banknotes in circulation. State Bank of Pakistan has given a deadline to all commercial banks to disburse only machine authenticated and sorted cash to their clients/general public from their branches/ATMs from January 2, 2017. In addition, SBP has also introduced the mechanism of interbank exchange and trading of cash whereby from January 2, 2017 the banks will be able to exchange cash directly from other banks and SBP Banking Services Corporation (SBP-BSC) window will be used as only a last resort to provide cash to the banks in case of shortages and to absorb access cash in case of surpluses in the market.With the introduction of this mechanism the existing facility available to banks for deposit of re-issuable banknotes with the offices of SBP-BSC will cease to exist. The SBP-BSC offices will accept the surplus cash only as a last resort when this cash could not be placed in the interbank market and that too against a service charge of 0.12% of the total value deposited. The SBP-BSC shall however continue to accept soiled and unfit banknotes from banks. The transition from the existing arrangement will be managed in an orderly manner.