Pakistan’s banking sector on Wednesday announced a voluntary 3% reduction in the markup rate on the Export Refinance Facility (ERF), lowering the end-user cost for exporters to 4.50% with immediate effect. The move, which was taken in national interest, aims to ease financing costs for the export sector and support foreign exchange inflows amid the […]
banks
Banks struggle with weak loan recovery system
Pakistan’s banking sector continues to outperform the wider economy, but this strength masks a long-standing structural weakness: the country’s ineffective loan recovery system. Banks prefer lending to the government instead of the private sector because recovering loans through courts is slow, uncertain and often unsuccessful. Read More: Pakistan’s Loan Recovery Crisis Hurts Banks and Borrowers Senior banking […]
Banks beware, Amazon and Walmart are cracking the code for finance
LONDON: Anyone can be a banker these days, you just need the right code. Global brands from Mercedes and Amazon (AMZN.O) to IKEA and Walmart (WMT.N) are cutting out the traditional financial middleman and plugging in software from tech startups to offer customers everything from banking and credit to insurance. For established financial institutions, the […]
Bank lending for affordable housing gains momentum
With the full support of the government and many initiatives of the State Bank of Pakistan, bank funding for the government’s flagship markup subsidy scheme e.g. Mera Pakistan Mera Ghar (MPMG), has increased. Banks have authorized about Rs 59 billion in housing loans under the MPMG scheme since its launch. Disbursement under MPMG, which was […]
State Bank of Pakistan allows banks, DFIs to provide loans
In order to promote housing finance and provide maximum facilities to the customers, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has issued guidelines for banks and development finance institutions (DFIs) and allowed them to provide loans for purchasing a housing unit in under-construction projects, a statement issued from the central bank said. The statement says that […]
US banks reward shareholders after Fed greenlight
Some of the United States’ biggest banks announced Monday they would pay tens of billions of dollars to shareholders in dividend increases and stock buybacks after getting the go-ahead from the Federal Reserve. The Fed lifted some Covid-era restrictions on banks last week as they proved able to successfully weather changing economic circumstances. In response, […]
Exploding ATMs: Brazilian banks wrestle with dynamite heists
More than two dozen heavily-armed men stormed into the center of Guararema early on a recent morning, rousing the Brazilian town’s residents with the sound of broken glass, explosions – and then gunshots. Brandishing high-powered rifles, wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying several kilos of dynamite, the gang pulled up in front of the town’s main […]