I would like to draw the attention of Ms Shamshad Akhtar, Governor SBP and Zakir Mahmood, President HBL's attention towards a violation committed by Habib Bank Limited.
According to SBP's Banking Policy Department's Circular No 19 dated 16th June, 2004, signed by Muhammad Kamran Shehzad, Director, "Every licensed branch of a scheduled bank shall carry a name and invariably be required to prominently display it outside the branch."
The Regulatory Authority deemed it proper to issue the above instructions with the basic aim of providing ease and convenience to the general public so that time, energies and resources are not wasted in locating the particular branch of a bank.
In total disregard and contravention to above the instructions of the SBP, the Habib Bank Management has made sure that there remains not a single branch of Habib Bank, which displays its name on the main HBL signboard. Why is it so? Isn't the poor and pathetic level of customer service offered by the bank enough that this new misery is also thrust upon the hapless customers.
During all these years of restructuring, HBL has not been able to develop a separate counter concept, for the different services offered. In one queue stands a person holding 100 rupees cheque, a person having a 456 rupees telephone bill and also a person having a 2 million rupees demand draft? Segmentation seems an alien concept to the bank management. When questioned, a shabbily dressed, near-to-suicide staff would answer, go to some bank, which offers all this.
The bank is fast losing its market share and eroding the history and heritage it once enjoyed because the senior management seem oblivious of the ground realities. It is only a matter of time before people shall consign it to the financial dustbin.