HBL enables transactions for PayPak cards

Habib Bank Limited (HBL) has become the first bank to enable PayPak ecommerce acceptance on its Internet Payment Gateway (IPG), which currently services over 400+ e-commerce merchants.

The move will allow PayPak cardholders to securely perform transactions with e-commerce merchants via HBL and shop online.

HBL and 1LINK take pride in expanding financial inclusion across the country and believe that such initiatives will prove to be a milestone for not just PayPak users, but also for the development of Pakistan's digital payments and e-commerce landscape.

On the occasion, 1LINK CEO Najeeb Agrawalla congratulated HBL on becoming the first acquiring bank accepting PayPak e-commerce payments. "HBL has always been at the forefront of digitisation and we value our partnership with HBL. This enablement brings PayPak one step closer to ubiquitous acceptance across the digital payment channels, of which e-commerce is the new normal in the wake of the pandemic. With 3D secure functionality, all 4 million plus PayPak cardholders will have the confidence to use HBL acquiring and adopt e-commerce transactions," he added.

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HBL Chief Innovation and Financial Inclusion Officer Abrar Mir said that HBL is proud to become the first acquiring bank that will enable PayPak users to use an e-commerce platform.

He added that HBL aims to be an organisation that empowers its customers to have the ability to form ecosystem partnerships and deliver scalable solutions in a secure and compliant manner. Silkbank has initiated negotiations for a deal with Habib Bank Ltd (HBL), the country's largest commercial bank, to sell its consumer portfolio, disclosed a notice sent to the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

HBL has approached Silkbank with a request for its concurrence to it for applying to the State Bank of Pakistan for permission to proceed with due diligence of its consumer portfolio credit cards, personal installment loans and running finance, the exchange was informed by the company secretary through the notice.

HBL's interest in SBL consumer assets follows the collapse of Fauji Foundation's interest in acquiring the bank. He said the Fauji Foundation was no longer interested in due diligence process.

Silkbank's

after

company secretary Faizul Hasan Hashmi told Dawn by telephone from Karachi that the bank was trying to raise funds for improving its current Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), also known as capital to risk-weighted assets ratio. It is a measure of how much capital a bank has available, reported as a percentage of a bank's riskweighted credit exposures.

At present, according to Silkbank's nine-month unaudited accounts for the period covering January-September 2020, the bank's CAR eroded significantly in nine months from 5.81pc at the end of 2019 to 4.16pc at the end of September 2020.

The SBP requires banks to maintain CAR at 11pc. The erosion in CAR shows a significant increase in the bank's infected loan portfolio in the period between January and September, forcing it to make provisions of Rs2.81 billion against nonperforming loans.

The purpose of CAR is to establish that the banks have enough capital on reserve to handle a certain amount of losses, before being at risk for becoming insolvent.

Mr Hashmi said the Covid-19 pandemic had made it extremely difficult for the bank to recover its bad loans, which meant it needed to look for other sources to inject capital into the company.