The business community has urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to withdraw additional holidays of banks. Chairman Lahore Chamber of Commerce &Industry (LCCI) Standing Committee for Agro-base Industry Dr Muhammad Arshad has claimed that the bank customers bore with an additional burden of Rs4.25 billion under the head of mark-up due to one holiday.
He also claimed that the customers were bearing with an additional loss of Rs225 billion per annum due to the holidays on every Saturday. He said that total deposits of all the scheduled branches of the State Bank of Pakistan are over Rs13 trillion on which Bank pay mark-up at the rate of 12 percent for a 365 days deposit. However, Saturdays and other such holidays bankers deny depositors a profit of Rs4.25 billion per day.
Explaining his point, he said that all the banks were closed for public deals on 1st of Ramazan but their staffs was present. So the customers were denied from all sorts of businesses including issuance of pay orders, demand draft etc. He said that this holiday cost Rs4.25 billion to those who had obtained loans from the Banks on the basis of 365 days.-PR