Inaugurating a two-day banking exhibition at Gujranwala on Friday, SBP Banking Services Corporation Managing Director Qasim Nawaz highlighted various initiatives taken or being taken by the State Bank to help underserved sectors in the fields of agriculture, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and microfinance.
He said the SBP was reviewing policy and regulatory environment to promote SMEs, agriculture and microfinance as a viable and mainstream activity for the banking industry.
Nawaz said the central bank had introduced credit guarantee scheme for small and rural enterprises to share credit risk up to 40% with banks with the objective of increasing bank lending to neglected sectors and areas. “An amount of Rs925 million has been disbursed to small and rural enterprises under the scheme and the SBP shares risk worth Rs392.5 million with commercial banks for their lending to this sector,” he added.
Under the microfinance credit guarantee facility aimed at resolving liquidity problems, 10 microfinance banks and institutions have been provided funds worth Rs2.8 billion by banks.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 24th, 2011.
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Could the State Bank pay some attention to facilitate ecommerce in Pakistan. Making and accepting online payments is not an easy job in Pakistan. Only a couple of banks offer online merchant accounts on very stringent conditions. There is no micro payments system. The state bank needs to come up with an e-payments infrastructure and instruct the banks to implement it.