Bank accounts

As someone who has held senior positions at both national and international banks, I am appalled to see the steady decline of services in the banking sector. Why are over 50 million bank customers who represent 25 percent of the population made to suffer on account of the acts of a few proscribed terrorist organisations? Today, it has become virtually impossible to open a bank account. What used to normally take around 15 minutes now takes, if you are lucky, anything up to three or four days. Everyone knows that proscribed outfits or money launderers who I presume are the main targets of the new draconian measures are least likely to use formal bank channels for carrying out their nefarious designs.

Undoubtedly, the object of this laudable effort wasn’t to create an atmosphere where genuine customers are inconvenienced to a degree that they may return to the ancient practice of keeping money under their mattresses. The State Bank of Pakistan and the head offices of commercial banks are requested to review this matter in a timely manner. If this matter remains unresolved, it is likely to do great harm to the goodwill that the banking industry has built over so many years.

Kamal Hyat

Lahore