August 20, 2002	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Saani 10, 1423

KARACHI, Aug 19: National Bank of Pakistan will start retail banking on a large scale by the end of this year.

This was stated by chairman and president of NBP, Syed Ali Raza while speaking at the 53rd annual general meeting of the bank held here on Monday to approve the accounts for the year 2001.

He said that initially 7 to 8 products would be selected for retail banking to facilitate individual account holders of the bank.

Talking about the products, Mr Raza said these would be auto loans, house mortgage, credit cards, debit cards, mutual funds, salaries in advance, etc.

He said at present NBP offered only checking accounts to the individual account holders under retail banking. “We think this is not sufficient and we should have new products under retail banking,” he observed.

The NBP chief said that retail banking had a very high profit margin having higher mark-up rates and lucrative fee, which would help NBP further increase its profitability.

The AGM also approved the accounts for 2001.—APP