Habib Bank, Pakistan's second-largest lender by assets, said its non-performing or bad loans had peaked and would stabilise in the coming quarters. "NPL ratios in the overall banking sector have grown. Ours stand at 10 percent currently and net of provisions, it's 2 percent," Zakir Mahmood, the bank's president and chief executive, told Reuters on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum event.
"We have worked very hard to improve it. We can definitely say that the NPLs have peaked and will stabilise in the coming quarters." Mahmood said the company planned to expand into the Gulf, South Asia and Africa. "These are the three clusters which are important to us, and here we will look to grow organically."
But he also said there was growing interest from Chinese banks to do business in Pakistan, providing more opportunities for the company to explore project finance deals in the domestic market. "Banks in China are looking outside their country, and they see lot of opportunities in their next-door neighbour, Pakistan. From our side, we are working with one of the largest Chinese banks on a major infrastructure project," Mahmood said, declining to give further details.
He also added that the bank was in the process of advising on as well as arranging financing for wind power projects. "We have at least five more wind power projects in the pipeline which we are involved in," he said. Habib Bank is present in 24 countries and has a balance sheet of $11 billion.
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