ISLAMABAD: Both Pakistan and Afghanistan, being neighbouring brotherly developing countries in the Asian region, can benefit by strengthening and promoting the financial Infrastructure to support microfinance through continuous knowledge and skill sharing experiences of their respective markets.
This was satated by Ghalib Nishtar, President, Khushhali Bank at a meeting with the visiting officials from Afghanistan representing the microfinance sector.
The visiting delegation that included: Bahram Barzin, Director Technical Support, Monitoring and Supervision, Microsoft Investment Support Facility for Afghanistan (MISFA), and Najibullah Samim, Executive Director, Afghanistan Microfinance Association (AMA), and Patmana Rafiq Kunary, Member Services Specialist, Financial Access for Investing in the Development of Afghanistan (FAIDA).
During the meeting it was agreed that both countries have got immense potential to benefit from wide and rapid promotion of microfinance services in all of its rural and urban areas to tackle poverty and unemployment.
President Khushhalibank, Ghalib Nishtar speaking on the occasion, said Pakistan has a conducive business environment for microfinance and Khushhalibank has been working both as a catalyst and a lead Institution in stabilizing Pakistan's microfinance sector with an objective of retailing microfinance services on a sustainable basis.
"Both Afghanistan and Pakistan can learn a lot from each other, and the cooperation and collaboration among our microfinance Institutions and experts could ultimately help overcome their deep- seated socioeconomic challenges through access to sustainable financial services in both countries.
Being one of the largest microfinance entities of the region currently having served nearly three million relationships and over four hundred thousand active clients, Khushhalibank has been also ranked as the premier microfinance organization in the Asia Pacific by the Microcredit Summit Campaign (MSC), a mega project of the RESULTS Educational Fund, which is a US based organization committed to ending hunger and poverty at the grassroots level.
On their special visit to Pakistan the Afghan officials who belonged to the APEX, the network and microfinance capacity building Institution from Afghanistan showed their interest in working through joint collaboration with the Pakistani microfinance sector so that both countries could achieve the desired results within a short span of time by constantly exchanging knowledge and expertise in the given areas.
Khushhali Bank was Founded in 2000.
It was a part of the Government of Islamic Republic of Pakistan's Poverty Reduction Strategy and its Microfinance Sector Development Programme (MSDP).
The MSDP was developed with the facilitation of Asian Development Bank (ADB). With its headquarters based in Islamabad, Khushhalibank operates under the supervision of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and many commercial banks are its shareholders.
Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2012
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