KARACHI, Jan 30: State-run Habib Bank Ltd. (HBL) earned a pre-tax profit of Rs4.1 billion in 2002 up from Rs2.2 billion in 2001. After-tax profit also went up to Rs2 billion from Rs1.1 billion.

The bank released these figures to the press after its Board of Directors approved its annual accounts at a meeting held here at HBL headquarters on Thursday. HBL president Zakir Mahmood attributed “this very strong performance to all businesses in Pakistan and in its international operations.”

This is for the first time that a major Pakistani bank has announced its annual result within 30 days.

The bank said its customer deposits shot up to Rs306bn from Rs273bn whereas its assets rose to Rs403bn from Rs333 billion.

“Administrative expenses were tightly controlled and remained unchanged at Rs11.8bn: intermediation cost declined from 3.9 to 3.4 per cent.”

The bank said it made cash recoveries worth Rs3bn in 2002 adding that cash recoveries made since 2000 totalled Rs11bn. The bank also restructured Rs10bn of classified loans in this period.

HBL also made Rs2.6bn provisions in 2002 with which the total provisioning made in the last three years rose to Rs6.5bn. All this provisioning has been made “from additional earnings.”

The losses on new loans booked in recent years totalled only Rs250 million or less than 0.5 per cent. This “reflects the high quality of systems and the credit management processes that have been put in place.”

“The 2002 results are a further confirmation of the solid turnaround at HBL as a result of the measures taken by the management,” said the bank’s chief Zakir Mahmood.

“HBL was the first bank to offer cheap dollar financing to help exporters and now has over Rs12bn in such loans,” says the statement.

It further says that the bank plans to increase the number of on-line branches from existing 100 to 350 within a year. The statement further says that home remittances handled by the bank have also risen to $678 from $304 million.