BoK to setup 168 new branches including unserved areas of FATA in 2019-20

PESHAWAR: Bank of Khyber (BoK) has chalked out a comprehensive plan to setup 168 conventional and Islamic branches in the unserved areas of tribal districts including erstwhile FATA to provide state-of the-art banking services to tribesmen through latest technology and trained human resource at their doorstep.

With opening of new branches, the tribal people would take advantage of different BoK’s finance schemes including agriculture, Islamic consumers, car, housing  and salary loans besides finance business development programmes, official sources in BoK told APP on Tuesday.

The KP government has set up a target of 85 new conventional branches for BoK during 2019 along with a deposit target of Rs15,803 million with main focus on unserved merged areas besides increasing current and low cost deposits so that the bank might capitalize and increase its profits in upcoming fiscal year.

As many as 73 new conventional branches were setup in 2016 with a total deposits of Rs126,189mln, 83 branches in 2017 with a total deposits of Rs122,731mln and 85 branches in 2018 with record despite of Rs125,274mln respectively.

Regarding Islamic banking, the official said 77 new branches with total deposits of Rs 30,831mln were established in 2016, 83 branches with Rs36,516mln deposits during 2017 and 83 branches with record Rs 45,903mln deposits in 2018 respectively.

The government has set a target of setting up of another 83 Islamic branches during 2019 to provide alternate opportunities to all those people trying to invest in Islamic mode of banking.

In addition to conventional and Islamic mode of banking, BoK has also setup 150 consolidated branches with Rs157,020mln deposits in 2016, 166 branches with a total deposits of Rs159,247mln in 2017, 169 branches with total deposits of Rs171,168mln in 2018. The government has setup a target of 169 consolidated branches with a deposit target of Rs193,706mln for 2019.

BOK has started its commercial operations in November 1991 and became a schedule bank with State Bank of Pakistan in 1994. The bank is currently operating with 169 branches across the country out of which 84 are Islamic banking branches.

A total of 101 branches were providing banking services in KP besides providing services in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, Gilgit-Baltistan, merged areas and AJK. The bank has a network of 303 correspondent and international banks in 69 countries, he added.

As many as Rs170 million including Rs131million for KP in 2016, Rs308 million including Rs236 million for KP in 2017 and Rs309 million including Rs250 million for KP in 2018 have been approved for different BoK’s finances programmes including SMEs, agriculture and housing business and would focus on maintaining the growth momentum and asset quality in upcoming fiscal year.

The official said emphasize would be made on major cost rationalization initiatives through continuous improvement in automation and product innovations besides increasing advances in all segments of the economy by promoting SME and agriculture sector to improve bank profitability.