JS Bank Limited, one of Pakistan’s fastest growing banks, is planning to open 80 new conventional and sub branches in the year 2009, which will bring their total footprint to 119 branches in over 30 cities across Pakistan.
The announcement comes on the heels of JS Bank completing its targets for 2008 by opening 39 branches across 13 cities of Pakistan. With the successful completion of their 2008 branch expansion targets, JS Bank had applied for a significant number of new licenses with the SBP, which have now been reportedly approved by the regulatory authorities.
Commenting on the subject of the bank’s aggressive expansion plans in 2009, Naveed Qazi, President and CEO, JS Bank stated, “The SBP has been a very proactive regulator who keeps the interests of bank customers supreme. It is an honour for us that the SBP has been very forthcoming in its support for JS Bank opening such a large number of branches. The new branches will not only treble the size of JS Bank’s network across Pakistan but will also increase our outreach to newer places and more customers. It is also a statement of confidence that the SBP has in upcoming banks like JS Bank, which is a very encouraging sign for the growth of the banking industry.
Our branch team has performed immensely well to ensure that we fulfilled all our last year’s network expansion commitments to the SBP and we hope to do the same this year as well”.
Speaking on the subject, Majid Hamid, Group Head – Retail Banking, JS Bank, stated, “The SBP allowing us to open 80 branches is a great statement of trust and a huge opportunity for JS Bank to increase its outreach to customers across Pakistan. This is in line with our vision of going beyond developed urban markets to service customers even in smaller cities and towns. We have a number of exciting initiatives in line with SBP directives to bring more customers to the banking mainstream and will use the opportunity provided through this branch expansion to bring world class banking services to a number of new markets and customers across Pakistan”.
