April 2, 2002	Tuesday	Muharram 18,1423

PESHAWAR, April 1: The provincial public sector Bank of Khyber (BoK) recorded Rs163 million pre-tax profit for the period ended December 31, 2001.

The profit recorded by the bank appears to be an improvement after the bank had underwent Rs156 million losses in the year ended December 31, 2000, according to sources.

The BoK, said the sources, managed to come out of recession making low provisioning against its outstanding loans.

Against around Rs300 million provisioning made in its accounts for the FY2000, this time round the bank reflected only Rs14 million provisioning.

Similarly, the bank also brought down the cost of its funds considerably helping it to improve its financial health - first time since its inception a decade ago.

The cost of funds, according to sources, - in the case of provincial government’s funds - has been brought down to eight to nine per cent from the unbearable 14 to 15 per cent.

Sources said that the downward readjustment of cost of funds helped the bank to come out of recession as majority of its funds - more than 50 per cent - pertained to the provincial government which was being paid markup as high as 14 to 15 per cent.