Photo: Shoaib Zafar / Wikimedia Commons ↗, CC BY-SA 4.0 ↗
ISLAMABAD, September 24, 2026 — Pakistan is setting up a Shariah advisory board to guide transactions in digital and virtual assets, the chairman of the Pakistan Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA), Bilal bin Saqib, told journalists in Islamabad on September 10, 2026. “We are establishing a Shariah advisory board on digital and virtual assets,” he said, according to The Express Tribune.
What was said
According to The Express Tribune and Profit, Saqib said:
- the government had taken the Grand Mufti of Pakistan into confidence on digital assets and was seeking his guidance on transactions involving them;
- guidance from the new board would be sought on transactions involving digital and virtual assets;
- Pakistan was considering the tokenisation of government debt and of Roshan Digital Accounts (Profit);
- Pakistan was negotiating memoranda of understanding with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan (Profit).
He did not name the board’s members, say which body would appoint them, or give a date. We found no notice about the board on PVARA’s news page on September 28, 2026.
Why it matters
In July 2026 an Islamic seminary ruled that crypto-based purchases are not permissible under Sharia, The News reported; the regulator responded that it was forming a Shariah advisory board. The Express Tribune reported on July 12, 2026 that Saqib had met Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani and argued that blockchain technology, stablecoins and tokenised real-world assets should not all be assessed “through a single lens”.
The remittance-cost claim
Saqib also spoke about cheaper remittances, but the reports differ on the numbers:
| Report | What it says |
|---|---|
| The Express Tribune | Digital remittances cost around 6.5%, which could be cut by one percentage point, saving around US$410 million |
| Profit | PVARA and SBP are devising a mechanism to cut remittance costs from 6.3% to 1%, which could save around US$416 million on flows of US$41 billion; a sandbox would come first |
Source: The Express Tribune ↗, Profit ↗ · checked 2026-09-28
Under the model Profit described, a remittance would be converted into a stablecoin (a crypto-asset designed to track a currency such as the US dollar) before reaching the recipient. Saqib acknowledged that meeting FATF anti-money-laundering requirements would be “a major challenge”, Profit reported. Neither PVARA nor SBP has published such a mechanism, and home remittances today still arrive through banks and licensed exchange companies.
What changed
- Before: PVARA’s chairman had consulted Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani (July 2026), but no Shariah advisory board for virtual assets had been announced.
- Now: PVARA’s chairman says a Shariah advisory board is being established. Its members, powers and timing have not been announced.
- Effective: Announced September 10, 2026. No start date given.
What this means for you Nothing changes yet for users: no ruling from the board exists, and no stablecoin remittance channel is open. Only Binance and HTX hold PVARA no-objection certificates, and no platform holds a full licence; check any platform on our PVARA licence tracker and read how to check a crypto platform.
Risk Crypto-assets are highly volatile and you can lose all the money you put in. Use only platforms with PVARA approval. This is not a recommendation to buy.
