KARACHI: The final scheme for re-organisation of the nationalised banks envisages setting up of five scheduled banks and the mer­ger will be effective from June 30 this year, the Chairman of the Pakistan Banking Cou­ncil, Mr M.R. Pirbhai said here. … Talking … to newsmen, Mr. Pirbhai said the scheme was finalised last week by the recently set up cou­n­cil and forwarded to the Federal Govern­m­ent for approval. … He said the five scheduled banks would be: National Bank, Habib Bank, United Bank, Allied Bank of Pakistan (Austra­lasia Bank) and Muslim Commercial Bank.

Mr. Pirbhai said the Bank of Bahawalpur would be merged with the National Bank and Habib Overseas and Standard Banks would be merged with Habib Bank. Commerce Bank would be merged with United Bank while Premier Bank would be merged with Muslim Commercial. The remaining three banks, i.e. Pak Bank, Sarhad Bank and Lahore Commer­cial Bank would be merged with Australasia and re-named as “Allied Bank of Pakistan”. The banking council chairman said except for Australasia Bank, all banks would retain their original names. The Australasia had been re-named because its present name gave the impression as if the bank was foreign-owned.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2024