The State Bank of Pakistan has extended the deadline to encash Rs 40,000 prize bonds by September 30 . You now have until September 30, 2021 to redeem these prize bonds.
The government discontinued these bonds in June 2019, but allowed people to encash them by March 31, 2020. The deadline was extended till December 2020 before being extended by another time .
The new policy is part of a drive to curb money laundering and tax evasion, one of the conditions Pakistan has to meet to exit the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force, a global watchdog on illicit money that is used in financing of terrorism and drugs business. Since prize bonds work like cash and are used by tax evaders to wash their dirty money, the government has decided to discontinue higher denomination prize bonds. Earlier this month, the government also discontinued Rs25,000 prize bonds on the same grounds. The deadline to encash Rs25,000 bonds is also September 30, 2021.
