Askari Commercial Bank Limited (ACBL) President Shaharyar Ahmad has inaugurated a new branch at Shahalam Market, here on Thursday. While talking to newsmen, the ACBL's President stated that the bank has maintained AA+ rating for the last three years.
Which is one of the highest ratings among the commercial banks, and moreover for the last three years it has received various best bank awards. He credited the success of the bank to the aggressive efforts of the bank's team.
According to him, they were practising Islamic banking and by the end of this month five branches designated to it would in operational, and by the end of this year the number would increase to eight. Moreover, the Askari's total branches in the country were 102, while the bank offers all range of banking products ranging from agriculture loans to SMEs loans. The bank is very much active in the agriculture sector and so far Rs 2.5 billion worth of agriculture loans have been disbursed.
He told the newsmen that they were concentrating on organic growth and were also looking in to introducing EME label chip, which would check the misuse of stolen bank cards.
On mark up, he said that increase in the volume of industrial loans in the recent time has put pressure on bank's liquidity, which led to increase in the mark-up, while fluctuation in the interest rate of the US also has a bearing on our mark up rates, since we were part of the global economy. He saw nothing unusual in the decline of stock markets in Pakistan, since it was a global phenomenon.
Senior bank officials and local businessmen were also present on the occasion.