FAISALABAD:Faisalabad excelled in National Financial Literacy Programme during the last three years as the importance of financial literacy had increased manifold due to digital and online banking.
This was stated by Ahsan Kamal, director Development Finance Support Department, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), here on Thursday.
Addressing a performance recognition ceremony here, he appreciated the overall performance of Faisalabad region and said that Agriculture Development Bank stood first while Soneri Bank got the second position in the national level event.
SBP Faisalabad Chief Manager Sarfraz Ahmad Nadeem said that Faisalabad based banks arranged maximum awareness sessions while 140,000 participants attended the programmes, out of which 130,000 opened their new accounts. He said that Faisalabad had arranged the first SME clinic with six banks while the second would be held on Dec 9.
Similarly, capacity building session for Faisalabad, Chiniot and Jhang had already been organised while session for Toba Tek Singh and Sargodha were in the pipeline.
“This region performed well in the house financing also and complaints were being addressed on priority basis,” he added. He said that the State Bank of Pakistan preferred the grey areas where people were avoiding to avail banking services. “Similarly, our focus was on women and majority of them were now operating their own bank accounts,” he added.
Later, Ahsan Kamal awarded shields to the best performers in different categories and hoped that the region would keep up its performance during the 4th year.
Senior Joint Director SBP Sheikh Muhammad Akbar, Deputy Chief Manager Asif Jabbar, Tahir Abbas and other officers were also present.