Cooperative Bank to be merged in BoP: Dar
By Fakhar Alam

ISLAMABAD—Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar on Monday informed the National Assembly that the Punjab Provincial Cooperative Bank will be merged into Bank of Punjab as its financial health is very very poor.
Speaking on a Calling Attention Notice, theminister said that the bank is heavily under capitalised as instead of minimum capital of Rs 4 billion, as required by the State Bank of Pakistan, it has only Rs 433.68 million of paid up capital.
He said the minimum capital requirement for a bank will increase to Rs 6 billion by December 2009.
The State Bank, he said, has invoked bank’s guarantee of Rs 8 billion by the government of Punjab to be paid in four quarterly instalments.
He said the government has no option but to either merge it, wind it up or convert it into a micro finance bank.
However, Ishaq Dar added, since the bank is ownedby the Punjab government, therefore it was upto them to decide its fate.
He said the suggestion by the movers of the notice to convert it into a micro finance bank will be passed on to the Punjab government.
“It is virtually a bankrupt bank. If the Punjab government decides to close it down, we will ensure that the farmers continue to get small loans through other banks,” Dar added.
The notice was moved by Chaudhry Imtiaz Safdar Warraich, Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Yasmeen Rehman and Fauzia Habib.