Islamabad :The Federal Minister for IT & Telecommunications Dr. Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui visited the U Microfinance Bank Ltd. Head Quarters in Islamabad. U Bank is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) – Etisalat Company, says a press release.
The bank has a network of over 200 branches and touch-points, across 160 cities and rural areas in Pakistan and offers a wide range of microfinance loans, deposit products and branchless banking solutions. U Bank’s branchless banking offers services under the banner of U Paisa in collaboration with Ufone (Pak Telecom Mobile Limited). The service is offered at more than 40,000 agent locations across Pakistan. Currently, U Bank serves more than 850,000 customers, where 22% of the served customers are women. The number of U Bank’s employees also grew by 50% during the year crossing the 2000 mark, where 9% of the total workforce comprises of women.
Driven by the passion for disruptive innovation and the desire for financial inclusion, U Bank aims to become the problem solver and enabler to the Pakistani microfinance ecosystem. U Microfinance Bank Ltd. Is committed to fight poverty in Pakistan. Over the last 4 years it has made important contributions towards implementation and achievement of the national financial inclusion agenda put forth in the National Financial Inclusion Strategy 2023 that aims to bring 50% of Pakistan’s adult population into the banking net. Over these years the bank has demonstrated exceptional growth and our network outreach has gone from 28 branches to 200 branches with its portfolio having grown from Rs900 million to Rs21 billion as of closing figures for the last quarter (ending September 2019). U Bank also boasts of 305,000 active borrowers and 400,000 depositors with a deposit of Rs20 billion. In 2018, the bank also recorded impressive profit growth of 111% compared to the previous year. In addition, the banks net equity has gone from Rs1 billion to currently Rs2.5 billion tier I and PKR 4 billion tier II.
As an organization U Bank also remains primed to become a forerunner in the future of banking by solving the critical challenges faced by customers and providing them with ever improving value-added services.