LAHORE, Jan 28: The Habib Bank Limited (HBL) is ready to accommodate any of its borrowers wishing to get his debt written off even outside the debt write-off scheme recently given by the central bank.

“We have been doing it even before the announcement of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP scheme) and we will continue to do so even after it has lapsed. You can approach us anytime for debt write-off even if you have got your loans restructured and rescheduled after the cut-off date (given for availing of the scheme),” senior HBL executives told a gathering of textile mill owners at the Aptma office here on Tuesday.

The meeting was chaired by senior vice president of Aptma Adil Mahmood who voiced the concerns of Aptma members and urged the HBL executives to accommodate as many borrowers as possible.

The central bank had issued circular 29 on October 15 last year, providing guidelines to the nationalized banks for writing off non-performing loans/advances classified as loss. Anyone interested can avail of the facility till April 14 this year.

While HBL and ABL have set December 31, 1999 as the cut off date, NBP and UBL have not given any such date. The banks have also issued their own guidelines in line with the SBP Circular 29 for the scheme.

Answering queries from the participants, senior executive president Naeem Iqbal and executive vice president Aslam Gadid said the bank, if approached by the borrowers who do not qualify for the SBP scheme, would consider their requests for write-off on a case to case basis. However, they said, they did not have any “tailor made” solution that could be applied in every case. “If you have any, let us know.”

They said the businessmen would rush to bankers whenever they were in a difficult situation but nobody approached them when the business was doing well. “None of you paid his loan instalment during 1999-00 when the textile business boomed and mills made big money. Had you made advance payments, you would not been sitting here today,” they said.