LAHORE, March 4: The Bank of Punjab (BoP) has approved a cash dividend of 17.5 per cent to shareholders for the year ended on December 31, 2002.

The approval was given by the BoP’s board of directors in its meeting held on Tuesday with its chairman Tariq Hamid in the chair.

According to the annual accounts for FY02 approved by the board, the bank’s pretax profit rose to Rs431 million from Rs421 million the previous year. Similarly, the equity increased to Rs3.313 billion from Rs2.391 billion.

An announcement said the deposits also rose substantially to Rs23.767bn from Rs19.035bn while advances rose to Rs6.621 billion from Rs5.970 billion. Investment has also increased to Rs8.295 billion from Rs5.970 billion the previous year.