The recently privatised, Habib Bank Limited has set up a branch in Kabul and its official inauguration has been set for Wednesday, April 14.
This will be the first private bank from Pakistan to operate in the Afghan capital ever, officials said here on Sunday.
The bank is sending a high-level team to be open the counters for business from Wednesday.
The official opening may take place a little later.
The team leaving here by the special UN flights is headed by Khaleeq Kiani, Senior Executive Vice President of the International Overseas Banking Group of the Agha Khan Foundation and includes Badar-ud-Din Qazi, Executive Vice President and Regional Chief Executive of the Bank in Islamabad.
A bank official from Mardan, Saleemul Haq has been appointed to head the new office and he is already in the Afghan capital organising the office.
The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) opened a branch at Kabul a couple of months earlier.
The HBL officials are expected to meet with the Foreign Office officials for a briefing here on Monday.
Official as well as diplomatic sources here believe that the decision to start operations in Afghan capital by a second Pakistani bank reflects the confidence current re-building activity has generated in the political and business circles in this country. Pakistani contractors are taking part in rehabilitation of important highway network in the war-ravaged neighbouring country.
This is the first time that Pakistani banks, whether private or public owned have set up operations in Afghanistan.
Even under the short-lived republican era that a thaw was seen ushering in the relations between the two countries and Afghanistan was opened to Pakistani tourists, no Pakistani bank had ventured to enter the financial market there.
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