A customer whose funds are frozen by an exchange, or who disputes a fee deducted from a transfer, needs somewhere to take that complaint before it becomes a regulatory matter or a court case. Section 45 of the Virtual Assets Act, 2026 builds that route in two layers: an internal complaint-handling duty that sits on every licensee directly, and a possible independent dispute-resolution scheme that the Pakistan Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (PVARA) may set up above it for smaller claims.
Both layers matter for how a licensee designs its customer operations from the start, not only for how it responds once a complaint actually arrives. A business built without a functioning internal escalation path is exposed twice over: once to the underlying customer dispute, and again to the separate question of whether it has met its section 45(1) obligation regardless of how the individual complaint is resolved.
What does section 45(1) require a licensee to build?
Section 45(1) states:
“Licensees shall establish and maintain internal complaint-handling procedures in accordance with the requirements prescribed by Regulations.”
The duty is to “establish and maintain” — meaning a licensee cannot treat this as a one-off setup task completed at launch and then left untouched. A procedure has to remain in place and, by implication, has to keep working as the business grows and as the kinds of complaints a virtual asset service provider receives change over time. The detailed content of what a compliant procedure looks like — response timeframes, escalation levels, record-keeping requirements — is left to Regulations PVARA is empowered to prescribe but had not published in the material reviewed here.
Does the Act specify how quickly a complaint must be resolved?
No fixed timeframe appears in section 45 itself. This is a gap the eventual Regulations will need to fill, and until they do, a licensee cannot point to a statutory deadline it is required to meet for a first response, an escalation, or a final decision on a complaint. In practice, our reading is that a licensee should not treat the absence of a stated deadline as licence to leave a complaint unresolved indefinitely — section 41(1)’s general duty to act “honestly, fairly and professionally” and “in accordance with the best interests of its customers” applies to how a complaint is actually handled, deadline or no deadline.
What is the independent dispute-resolution scheme in section 45(2), and is PVARA required to create one?
Section 45(2) states:
“Notwithstanding anything contained in any other law for the time being in force, the Authority may establish or recognize an independent dispute-resolution scheme for claims below a prescribed monetary threshold.”
The word “may” is doing real work here: PVARA is empowered, not obliged, to set up or recognise this scheme. Unlike section 45(1)’s internal complaint duty, which binds every licensee immediately once its content is prescribed, section 45(2)’s independent scheme is discretionary on PVARA’s side and depends on PVARA deciding to exercise that power. A prospective licensee should not assume an external, low-cost dispute forum will exist for small claims unless and until PVARA actually establishes or recognises one.
The “notwithstanding” clause at the start of section 45(2) is also worth noting: it overrides any other law that might otherwise limit or conflict with PVARA’s power to set up such a scheme. That is a strong drafting signal that Parliament wanted this power to operate cleanly regardless of gaps or restrictions in other legislation — even though the power itself remains discretionary.
How would section 45(2)’s scheme interact with a customer’s other legal options?
The Act does not say the independent scheme would be the exclusive route for a small claim, nor does it say a customer must use it before going to court or to the Virtual Assets Appellate Tribunal established under section 62. Section 63 gives any person aggrieved by an order of PVARA a right of appeal to that Tribunal, but a customer’s dispute with a licensee over its own conduct — as opposed to a dispute with a decision PVARA itself has made — is a different category of claim, and section 45(2)’s scheme is the mechanism the Act specifically contemplates for exactly this kind of customer-versus-licensee dispute, once and if PVARA creates it.
Until PVARA exercises that power, a customer’s practical options for a dispute below whatever monetary threshold PVARA might eventually set are the licensee’s own internal procedure under section 45(1), a complaint to PVARA directly, or ordinary civil litigation — none of which is designed specifically as a low-cost, expedited channel for small claims the way section 45(2)’s scheme is intended to be.
What should a licensee’s internal complaint-handling procedure cover, given the gaps in the Act’s detail?
Until PVARA’s Regulations under section 45(1) are published, a licensee has to design against the plain wording of the Act plus the general conduct standards it sets elsewhere. A defensible starting structure includes:
- A single, clearly signposted intake channel — an email address, a form, or an in-app route — so a customer is not left guessing how to raise a complaint in the first place.
- A written acknowledgement within a fixed internal target time, even in the absence of a statutory deadline, so the customer knows the complaint has actually been received.
- An escalation path to a named senior individual, consistent with the accountability structure the Act builds around key individual roles generally.
- A complaints log recording the nature of each complaint, its resolution and the time taken, which doubles as evidence of the section 45(1) procedure actually operating rather than existing only on paper.
- A clear statement of the customer’s further options if the internal procedure does not resolve the matter, including PVARA itself and, once it exists, any section 45(2) scheme.
| Complaint-handling element | Statutory basis | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Internal procedure must exist and be maintained | Section 45(1) | Confirmed duty |
| Detailed content of the procedure | Section 45(1) Regulations | Not yet prescribed |
| Fixed response or resolution deadlines | Not stated in the Act | Not yet prescribed |
| Independent scheme for small claims | Section 45(2) | Discretionary, not yet established |
What happens if a licensee has no functioning internal procedure at all?
Section 45 carries no standalone penalty clause of its own. Exposure runs through the Act’s general enforcement powers: section 59(1) allows PVARA to issue a written reprimand, a directive to remedy the deficiency, a financial penalty up to the prescribed maximum, or, in a serious case, suspension or revocation of the licence under section 23(1)(a), which lists contravention of “any provisions of this Act” as a ground for that action. A missing or non-functioning complaint procedure is a straightforward contravention of section 45(1)’s “establish and maintain” duty, independent of how any individual customer dispute is ultimately resolved.
How should this shape a licensee’s customer operations from launch?
Building a working complaint-handling procedure into a licensee’s operating model from day one is materially cheaper than retrofitting one after a supervisory inspection or a customer complaint to PVARA directly exposes the gap. Given how much of section 45’s detail — deadlines, format, thresholds — is still left to Regulations, the safer course for anyone entering the Pakistani market is to build a procedure now that meets the general conduct standard in section 41(1) and can be tightened once PVARA’s specific Regulations arrive, rather than waiting for the detailed rules before building anything at all.
Related reading
- PVARA Exchange License: Capital, Rules & Obligations 2026
- PVARA Transfer & Settlement License: Crypto Payments 2026
- PVARA Licensing Process: NOC to Full Licence, Step by Step
- The PVARA Licensing Gold Rush: Pakistan’s Crypto Frontier
- PVARA Custody License: Safeguard Customer Crypto 2026
About this analysis
This analysis was prepared by the CoinConnect research desk from the Virtual Assets Act, 2026 as passed by the National Assembly, read as published. Where practice is not yet settled or guidance has not been issued, that is stated in the text above.
Regulatory positions change and specific requirements should be verified against the current position published by the relevant authority before you act on them. This is information and analysis, not legal advice, and it does not create an advisory relationship. Take professional advice on your own circumstances.
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