Picic, Picic Commercial Bank's merger likely

The merger of Picic and Picic Commercial Bank is likely to get the approval in principle from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) in next few days and thereby, its processing will be completed by February 15.
Picic managing director, Mohammad Ali Khoja said this after an inaugural function of a branch in Khayaban-e-Sehar area in Karachi. He said that Picic's each share would be equivalent to Picic Commercial Bank's 1.87 shares a private TV channel reported.
Mohammad Ali Khoja said that he was not faced with any difficulty in meeting the capital requirements of SBP under international banking system Basel II, making mandatory for banks to raise their capital to Rs 3 billion by December 2005 and to Rs 4 billion by December 2006.
Mohammad Ali Khoja further said that his organisation's capital would rise to Rs 4.7 billion won after the merger. He said that Picic Commercial Bank's net-profit this year was likely to surge by about 35 percent.