Finance & Market

Islamic banking has been defined as a system of banking, which is in accordance to the values and the spirit of Islam and is based on principles, which have been put forth by the Islamic Shariah. Not only does this form of banking avoid any interest-based transactions, it also avoids unethical and immoral social practices, which go against Islamic law. Thus the aim of Islamic banking is to work towards …

  For the past two decades, the banking sector has chosen a new service channel based on the progress of information technology – internet to respond to the changes in customer preferences and needs, increasing competition from non-banks, changes in demographic and social trends, and government deregulations of the financial service sector. In the search for sustainable competitive advantages in the technological financial service industry, banks have acknowledged the value …

  Over the last one decade banks have been working hard to enhance their outreach, by increasing number of branches but more importantly through deployment of technology. The convergence of telephony and information technology has helped in developing ‘technology highway’. Now an account holder can complete a banking transaction irrespective of time, his location and even his/her primary bank. Initially there was some resistance against use of ‘plastic money’ as …

  Pakistan is one of the fastest developing markets for branchless banking in the world where 90% of total bank branches are currently processing real time online banking services across the country. During the last five years average shows that 36 per cent of the transactions were routed through electronic channels depicting a 23 per cent average yearly growth as compared to 2 per cent average growth in paper based …

  The banking sector through CY12 to date has faced tough challenges with external factors including law and order situation, political uncertainty, strikes causing closure of bank branches in distressed areas to name a few. According to the Financial Stability review released by SBP for second half of 2011, 12 banks in Pakistan failed to meet the MCR of PKR 8 billion by December 31, 2011. The minimum capital adequacy …

  Pakistan’s stock markets, particularly KSE is known worldwide for providing the best returns among global stock exchanges. KSE index more recently was expected to show a decline and expected not to breach the hypothetical index value of 16,000. The stock market on the contrary is trading at 16,800 points. As on 30-Dec-11, KSE was trading at 11,347 points giving an annual return to date of 41 percent which is …

  The banking industry in Pakistan faces tough competition unleashed in the global arena. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have transformed the global economy bringing about a revolutionary change in the financial sector. This revolution finds manifestations today in shape of innovative banking products and services such as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), Internet banking, tele-banking and so on. Online banking has introduced non-traditional channels of delivering services in the banking …

  The calendar year 2014 (CY14) has proved to be another good year for Pakistan equities with benchmark KSE-100 Index gaining over 27.3%. It was also evident that during the period under review activity at the bourse lost pace slightly as daily average traded volumes declined by 6.4% to 208 million as compared to 222 million for CY13. Despite this bullish trend only 4 IPOs made their way to the …

  Pakistan’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) sector has witnessed tremendous growth during the last 15 years or so. Banking sector, though for the wrong reasons, has managed to keep pace with the ICT sector’s fast-paced growth. The abolition of fractional reserve system in 1971 and the post-crisis ‘Quantitative Easing’ have generated a spate of US dollars. These dollars, traveling on the vehicle of foreign trade, have infused the entire global …

  A strong trend in the growth and profitability of banking sector is judged by the stability in the monetary policy, increasing spreads, decrease in nonperforming loans (NPLs) and the selling of stakes by the government in banks to public. The experts see a good trend in banking performance in Pakistan. The country’s banking sector has four categories including large banks with total assets in excess of Rs500 billion; medium …