Bank Alfalah, EOBI celebrate 200,000 registered pensioners

Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) and Bank Alfalah celebrated successful migration of 200000 EOBI pensioners to Bank Alfalah's convenient Wallet Accounts here on Monday.
In this connection a vibrant event was organised at a local hotel in Karachi, attended by Pir Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis & Human Resource Development, Muhammed Sualeh Faruqui Ex-Chairman EOBI, Mehreen Ahmed Group Head Retail Banking South & New Initiatives Bank Alfalah, senior bankers and high officials of Bank Alfalah and EOBI.
The project is of paramount importance for thousands of EOBI pensioners whose lives have been made easier through digitization of pension disbursement process. In August 2015, Bank Alfalah was awarded the banking service mandate through comparative bidding process as per PPRA Rules for contribution collection and disbursement of pensions to over 390000 EOBI pensioners.
After gradual opening of Bank Alfalah Wallet Accounts, pensioners are now enjoying the convenience of withdrawing pensions through their debit cards. Prior to digitising, EOBI pensioners were required to visit specific NBP branches every month along with their pension passbooks and wait in long queues for manual cash disbursement. The newly introduced digital system eliminates that hassle extending the freedom to draw pensions from any of 10000 ATMs across the country at their convenience.
Pir Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi said that Pakistan needs many of such initiatives to bring convenience and quality to the lives of senior citizens. He said that collaboration between EOBI and Bank Alfalah to facilitate the elderly citizens should be emulated by other government and private organisations.
He congratulated EOBI and Bank Alfalah for completing 200000 registrations in a short time. Mr Rashidi also appreciated the mobile App developed by HRSG and expected that it will be available to workers very soon. He expected that the App will narrow the gap between workers and EOBI Management.
"We laud the efforts of EOBI Management and Bank Alfalah to digitize the payment disbursement process for EOBI pensioners", said Muhammed Sualeh Faruqui, Ex-Chairman EOBI now Principal Secretary to Governor Sindh. Seeing hundreds of aged EOBI pensioners, both men and women queued in and outside bank branches to collect their pensions was very painful for me, he added.
The ease of Bank Alfalah ATM based disbursements matches the well-deserved respect and dignity of EOBI pensioners. The model itself is the one to take inspiration from. We are pleased that Bank Alfalah has already completed over 200000 registrations. We hope that the compulsory migrations of remaining pensioners in January 2017 will be effectively handled, he said.
Mehreen Ahmed, Group Head Retail Banking South & New Initiatives Bank Alfalah as opposed to the conventional modes of pension disbursement that are often inconvenient, time-consuming and full of hassles, Bank Alfalah's model offers ultimate convenience to the EOBI pensioners. "Our successful collaboration with EOBI has been in pursuit of Bank Alfalah's mission to empower Pakistani society and simplify everyday transaction hassles. As the transition nears its completion, pensioners have started to withdraw pensions from the convenience of over 10000 ATMs using Bank Alfalah debit cards", she added.