NBP tops in agriculture credit disbursement

National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) tops in agriculture credit disbursement of Rs 42.4 billion among nearly 252,000 farmers, against a target of Rs 41 billion. Farooq Hasan, NBP Senior Vice President, expressed these views while addressing the media after gifting 10 computers to Lahore Press Club.
NBP Vice President Syed Ibne Hassan and Lahore Press Club President Sarmad Bashir and Secretary Azam Chaudhry were also present on the occasion. Hasan said NBP is among the 'five big' banks of Pakistan; while it offers complete range of commercial banking services, on the key areas is lending to farmers. "For the financial year 2011-12 the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has fixed an indicate lending target of Rs 280 billion, out of this NBP has been assigned the maximum share. NBP takes pride in having disbursed even more than the target assigned last year and aims at offering even better services to the farmers due to its greater outreach. This becomes possible only because NBP's 875 branches out of total 1271 domestic branches are involved in catering to the needs of farmers," he added.
According to him, the other point distinguishing NBP is very competitive mark up rate, lower than the rate being charged by other financial institutions. The loans disbursed can be divided into two categories, production and development loans. Under the first category loans are disbursed mainly for the procurement of seeds, levelling land, pesticides and fertilisers, and the second category is for the purchase of agricultural tractors and implements and construction of modern storage, cattle form, poultry form etc facilities. Hasan said one of the key responsibilities of the government and the corporate sector is to empower people. "In this endeavour mass media plays a key role. In an attempt to facilitate the journalistic community of our country, NBP has been extending full support to improvise quality of reporting through utilisation of modern technologies.