President Alvi urges banks to provide timely relief to victims of bank frauds

ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi urged the private banks to provide timely relief to victims of bank frauds, comply with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP)’s regulations, and save time of public institutions, and other forums of justice by avoiding unnecessary litigation.

The President expressed these views, on Friday, while disposing of five separate representations of a private bank against the decisions of the Banking Mohtasib (BM). He appreciated its policy of settling the grievances of its customers and implementing BM’s decisions, thus, saving the public’s time and expenditure, and avoiding undue litigation.

The President in his five separate decisions appreciated Habib Bank Ltd (HBL) for settling the cases of disputed banking transactions through mutually-agreed settlements and paying its customers their lost amounts under its positive pro-people banking policy.

The President in his decisions observed that as HBL had already paid the disputed amounts to its customers and the matters had been amicably resolved, therefore, the representations filed by HBL against the decisions of BM had become in fructuous.

As per details, five different complainants had lost money from their bank accounts ranging from Rs32,000 to Rs150,000 as a result of fraud, unauthorized funds transfer, ATM fault, or online purchase of digital content. The complainants had separately approached the banks for seeking a refund of their lost amounts; however, they did not receive any relief. Consequently, the complainants approached Banking Mohtasib for refunding their amounts, who directed HBL to credit the complainant’s accounts with the lost sums. HBL, then, filed representations with the President however, during the hearings the Bank’s Legal Counsel informed that mutually agreed settlements had been reached between the complainants and HBL.

Keeping in view the facts of the case and resolution of cases as per HBL’s policy, the President disposed of the representations.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022