KARACHI, Oct 23: A senior executive of the state-run National Development Finance Corporation said on Tuesday that the NDFC could be merged with NBP much earlier than scheduled.

“We may see the merger taking place in early November,” Executive Vice President Syed M. Husaini told Dawn.

When asked why NDFC has so far not allowed its depositors to withdraw up to Rs500,000 from their accounts he said: “We are discussing this thing with the State Bank. One view is that the corporation may be merged with NBP by early November. In that case NBP may start repaying the depositors in phases.”

No confirmation was immediately available from NBP.

When the government had slapped a six-month moratorium on NDFC, the State Bank had said in a press statement that it would be amalgamated with NBP by the end of November. The central bank had also said that the corporation would allow withdrawals up to Rs500,000 by the third week of October.

That was why people made a beeline in front of NDFC branches on Monday and Tuesday to know whether the corporation is going to allow withdrawals up to half a million rupees. But they had to return empty-handed as NDFC officials explained to them that the senior management was yet to take a decision on it.

More than 30,000 small NDFC depositors have so far withdrawn Rs3.7 billion plus from their accounts. The withdrawals have been made by only those who had in their balance up to Rs250,000. NDFC had total deposits of Rs26-27 billion when the moratorium was placed on it. Its depositors are more than 100,000 in number.