HBL gears up for franchise banking

Service to be initiated in major cities first; to be expanded nationwide.

PESHAWAR: Habib Bank Limited (HBL) Regional General Manager (Operations) Afaq Zaidi has said the bank will initiate franchise banking, whose services could be availed between 9:00AM to 9:00PM.

Talking to the APP here on Thursday, he said that franchise banking will be started in the Peshawar and Mardan districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, besides other big cities of the country, in the first phase. The system, he said, would later be extended to more cities.

He said the facility will benefit those who do not have a bank account, and that such persons could easily transfer money through their mobile phones. The transaction, he said, will take only a minute to complete.

In the second phase, beginning from October 1, 2012, the facility will be extended to overseas Pakistanis. They will be able to transfer their remittances at any time through the service, and their families will easily be able to collect the payments in any city of the country.

The model, he said, is already successfully in operation in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India. As HBL has a vast network in Pakistan, Pakistani consumers will not face any problems with these services, he said. He said that franchise banking operations will be completely commercial, and that people can benefit from it even if they access it only through their mobile phones.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2012.