LAHORE, July 1: The central bank’s committee constituted for resolving disputes cropping up between banks and “delinquent” borrowers who have applied for amnesty under the SBP’s guidelines for the write-off of irrecoverable loans/advances has been facing problems in disposing of complaints due to uncooperative attitude of certain banks.

In all the committee has received some 750 complaints from the borrowers against the lending banks and DFIs. Out of them, it has so far helped settle 125 complaints/cases while 18 were rejected.

Sources close to the committee told Dawn here on Tuesday that three lenders — PICIC, NBP, and First Women Bank — were not providing required information demanded by the committee for the disposal of complaints of their borrowers against them.

“The disposal of the complaints would pick pace if these three banks begin responding quickly to the inquiries of the committee. In fact these three banks have not replied to the committee’s three-month old queries,” the source said. However, he added, the response of other lending banks/DFIs had been quite positive. “It is not that we want the banks to respond in days. Of course, they also need time to provide the relevant information we ask them to furnish. What we expect from the bank is that they take sustained interest in the resolution of the complaints,” he said.

The sources said the central bank has already issued direction to NBP and PICIC to expedite process of settlement of cases filed with them as well as cooperate with the committee by providing it the information needed by it for disposal of complaints.

It may be mentioned that the banks and DFIs are stated to have settled over 19,000 nonperforming accounts involving an amount of around Rs10.50 billion so far under the central bank’s guidelines for the write-off of irrecoverable loans and advances issued last October.

Some 25,000 defaulters had applied for the settlement of their loans worth Rs54 billion under the amnesty scheme that expired on June 30, according to the figures compiled by the end of May. The figures for June are yet to be compiled, the sources say.

The central bank gave the write-off guidelines to enable banks and DFIs clean their books by restructuring or recovering the bad loans. The objective of the amnesty is said to be revival of sick industry in the country by providing them a breathing space.