KARACHI: President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Abdullah Zaki has urged Governor State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) that keeping in view the hardship being faced by business community, the existing banks’ timings for the holy month of Ramazan ul Mubarak be revised and extended upto 3:30PM.
In a statement issued, Abdullah Zaki said that business community, particularly the businesses of small traders were suffering badly due to lack of banking facilities during peak hours as currently banks remain open from 8:00AM to 1:30PM only.
He suggested that bank timings should be revised and the commercial banks, instead of remaining open from 8:00AM to 1:30PM, be directed to start providing banking services from 10:00AM to 3:30PM so that the business community, particularly small traders could smoothly carry out their financial transactions.
He said that it is a well-known fact that business activities in almost all commercial markets across the city start off at 12:00PM whereas commercial banks wrap up banking services at 1:30PM, which leaves very little time to carry out important financial transactions and usually results in postponing many transactions to next day due to unavailability of banking services.
President KCCI hoped that keeping in view the difficulties being faced by the business community, Governor State Bank would consider KCCI’s request of revising bank timings and extending banking services up to 3:30PM. “A favorable decision by Governor SBP will help in minimizing the hardships being faced by businessmen and traders. It will provide them additional two hours during peak business time in which they can smoothly carry out financial deals and other important transactions pertaining to banks”, he added.
