NBP to bring 250 more branches under CBA

National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) has successfully implemented Core Banking Application (CBA) at its Main Branch, Karachi and now plans to convert another 250 branches by the end of September 2013, official sources said. Its Call Centre is now working on 24/7 basis providing account information, facilitating lodging complaints and finding status of ATM card application.

The Call Centre now receives more than 1,000 calls daily and the numbers are increasing day by day. The Bank is serving 7.7 million accountholders. Bank serves 3.3 million pensioners out of total 4 million pensioners in the country.

National Bank of Pakistan is a diversified, dynamic and the largest banking institution of the country. Its services are available to individuals, corporate entities and government. It continues to act as trustee of public funds and as the agent to the central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan (in places where SBP does not have presence). Recently, it has converted its whole network of branches online. This milestone has paved way for offering a number of online facilities to the accountholders such as Inter Branch Fund Transfer, Cash deposit and withdrawals from any branch and issuance of NBP Cash Card that is utilizable both as ATM and as Debit Card.

NBP is the pioneer in Pakistan in developing a wide range of consumer products, to enhance business and cater to different segments of society. Some schemes are specifically designed for all the income segments of population. These include NBP Advance Salary, NBP Saiban, NBP Kissan Dost, NBP Cash n God. NBP has implemented special credit schemes like small finance for agriculture, business and industries, administrator to Qarz-eHasna loans to students, self-employment scheme for unemployed persons, public transport scheme. During 2012, NBP through concerted efforts managed growth in all spheres especially in low risk consumer finance (Cash n Gold) and deposits with record growth. It stood by the nation in time of need, where recent floods wiped out of the business of some of its clients, the bank stood with the nation. SME & agriculture sectors have been its focus, as these are main pillars for generating economic activities in the country and offer lucrative opportunities for effective diversification and optimum returns.

A web-based application has been implemented from 1st March 2012 in 560 designated branches for payment of pension and collection of contribution of Employees Old Age Benefits Institution — an autonomous body that assures payment of grant, financial relief or financial assistance to employees of private institutions who are registered with it. Thesystem facilitating direct credit of pensions to pensioners’ accounts has been developed which will eliminate their physical presence in the Branch to claim pension. Automation of pension payment to retired employees of Pakistan Railways is also planned which benefits more than 100,000 pensioners and reduces counter traffic at Bank’s branches.

It undertook remodeling of Card Management Unit (CMU) for improving its efficiency in dealing with ATM card issuance and allied services to card holders in the year 2012. The capacity to produce cards and their delivery through courier services has enhanced from 700 cards per day to 7,000 cards per day. The turnaround time for issuance of ATM Card to applicant has also been significantly reduced. Manual based application for issuance of ATM Card has been substituted with automated filing of application. In the next phase, generation of Personal Identification Number (PIN) for ATM will be done by the card holder through IVR feature available at Call Centre.

ATM Alerts are now generated for ATM/Debit Transactions. As a next step, alerts for all Debit and Credit transactions that are made (self or by the Bank) in customer accounts as well as automatic reversals would also be generated. NBP has successfully replaced the paper based account opening process with a system based account opening process which meets all regulatory as well as Bank’s internal policy requirements relating to KnowYour-Customer.

Generation of Computerized Payment Receipt (CPR) is already offered in case of collection of FBR dues through software developed and owned by FBR – PRAL. A computerized Payment Receipt (CPR) duly secured with bar code is generated by the system which covers 80% of the collections made for FBR. NBP is now pursuing the objective of automating the process of government collections enabling the depositors to have computerized payment receipt. For minimizing the turn-around-time (TAT) in dealing with customer complaints all 29 Regional Offices are now linked with Customer Facilitation Centre at Head Office to route Customer Complaints and their follow-up till resolution.