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.

Moody’s Investors Service – one of the world’s top three credit rating agencies – on Thursday downgraded Pakistan’s outlook from stable to negative. The decision to change the outlook to negative is driven by Pakistan’s heightened external vulnerability risk and uncertainty around the sovereign’s ability to secure additional external financing to meet its needs, the rating agency said in its report.