Daily Times

The Bank of Punjab, being the Champion Bank-South Punjab, arranged 1st meeting of Regional Agri Coordination Committee (RACC) on March 15th 2022, at SBP-BSC Multan under the chairmanship of Zafar Masud, President & CEO.

The basic purpose of the meeting was to devise a strategy to achieve the SBP Agri Targets for South Punjab through collaboration among member banks/DFI’s. Director, AC&MFD – SBP Noor Ahmed also attended this meeting besides Chief Managers SBP BSC Multan and Bahawalpur, Agriculture/Credit Heads of commercial, microfinance, specialized banks, and representatives from Pakistan Microfinance Network (PMN).

In the last Meeting of Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee held on 20th December 2021, Governor SBP, Mr. Reza Baqir formally introduced concept of Champion Bank to serve the under developed areas.

Zafar Masud (President & CEO – BOP), briefed the participants regarding strategy to be adopted to achieve the desired goals . He emphasized on financial inclusion of small farmers in underserved districts of South Punjab. Mr. Masud also shared his views and approach in dealing with major challenges being faced by agriculture sector in south Punjab. He also committed to extend his full support on behalf BOP to make this concept a success story.

Noor Ahmed, Director SBP, while briefing the participants dwelled upon the expectations and requirements under the new regime of Champion Bank Concept and its role in agri financing in the region. He urged the participants to undertake new initiatives and develop innovative products and solutions to counter various challenges being faced by the country particularly in regard to food security and food inflation. He added that the best ideas and products/solutions will be presented in the upcoming meeting of Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee (ACAC).

Besides, performance of all the member banks was reviewed viz a viz gaps and PFIs were advised to bring about necessary improvement where required. SBP also emphasized upon the member banks to streamline their agri products and policies to better serve the farming community through innovation and technology.

All participating Financial Institutions agreed to share their action plan with Champion Bank in order to fill the gap in SBP targets (disbursement, outstanding & number of borrowers). It was also discussed and encouraged to fill hiring gap through job fairs in collaboration with the agriculture universities.

Next meeting of RACC will be convened in April 2022 to review results of March Quarter 2022.