KARACHI, March 5: The Union Bank earned a pre-tax profit of Rs286 million in 2002 as against only Rs9 million in 2001. The after-tax profit also rose to Rs163 billion from Rs31million.

The bank officials say the assets of the bank grew to Rs55.8 billion, up from Rs30.1 billion, and total deposits increased to Rs37.8 billion from Rs20.7 billion. Advances by the bank also rose to Rs28.9 billion in 2002, up from Rs13.9 billion in 2001.

The strong performance suggests that the bank has started to benefit from the intensive growth strategy it has followed in the past two years: the bank opened 8 new branches in 2002, increasing the total number of branches to 42 in 17 cities across Pakistan.

In 2002, the Union Bank launched several new products and services, including rupee-denominated American Express Charge card; Ready Cash; Business Account and ATM cards.

The officials say the Union Bank has now decided to expand its core banking operations overseas — in selected emerging markets and plans to start operations in Sri Lanka very soon.

The bank also issued the first tranche of its term finance certificates in 2002. The public offering of the TFC was over-subscribed by three times and the TFC offering altogether fetched the bank Rs750 million. “The Union Bank also issued rights shares during 2002, which were subscribed to the extent of Rs534 million.