LAHORE, Aug 2: The central bank’s Dispute Resolution Committee has decided some 74 complaints of defaulters and asked their banks to settle their accounts under the SBP guidelines on the write-off of irrecoverable loans and advances.

The committee, comprising senior bankers and businessmen, has also rejected 79 complaints of defaulters against their banks while another 62 grievances of the borrowers are being processed by the committee.

The committee was constituted by the central bank in order to resolve the disputes that may arise between the banks and their borrowers who wish to settle their non-performing accounts under the SBP circular BPD-29.

In all, the committee has received 701 complaints from borrowers whose applications were rejected by their banks on one pretext or the other and held 17 meetings since its formation.

On receiving a complaint, the committee sends two formats — one each to the complainant and his/her bank — for filling in with the details of the loan. On receiving the details from both sides, it decides the case one way or the other.

Sources in the committee told Dawn on Saturday that the banks had so far provided details in response to its queries in 254 cases.

They said Bank of Punjab and First Women Bank Ltd were extremely slow in responding to the committee’s queries. “On the other hand, Allied Bank Ltd is very slow in sending back to us its report on the implementation of the cases decided by the committee in favour of its clients. In fact, it is still resisting execution of the decisions taken by the committee.”

Muslim Commercial Bank and the SME Bank were also reluctant to implement the committee’s decision but later yielded to the central banks directive (BPD circular 8 & 23) and started executing them.

The sources, however, were all praise for Muslim Commercial Bank, Habib Bank Ltd and United Bank Ltd for speedy disposal of cases. National Bank of Pakistan is said to be lagging behind all other banks in settling the NPAs despite a directive from the central bank to expedite the process.

The SBP has told all the banks to decide all applications, submitted to them by the borrowers by June 30 (the deadline to avail the scheme), by August 31.