Pakistan’s largest commercial bank in the private sector, HBL, faces allegations of facilitating terror financing during the 2010-19 period, a charge that the bank said it is contesting “fully and vigorously” in a US court. Media reports suggested that some 370 individual complainants had demanded compensation from HBL. This subsequently triggered a big fall in the bank’s share price on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) on Thursday.

The top International Monetary Fund (IMF) official in Islamabad has confirmed Pakistan had met the final precondition for the seventh and eighth review under a $6 billion loan program. Pakistan met the last condition by increasing the petroleum development levy (PDL) on July 31. The PDL was raised by Rs10 on petrol and by Rs5 each on HSD, kerosene and light diesel oil (LDO).

Pakistan’s two leading car assemblers, Toyota and Suzuki, plan partial plant shutdowns next month due to unavailability of raw material amid import restrictions and exchange rate volatility. The freefalling of rupee has had a cascading effect on industries that rely on imports to complete finished goods as the central bank delayed clearance of letters of credit with banks facing a shortage of dollars, affecting their ability to import materials.

Pakistan’s top performing startup, Airlift, announced on Tuesday that it had permanently shut operations in the country after day-to-day running finances dried up and an attempt to raise fresh funds failed last week. The grocery delivery startup had raised the largest financing of $85 million in the country’s history in the Series B funding round in August 2021.