RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: The State Bank of Pakistan is likely to approve sale of HSBC (Pakistan) network to JS Bank, it is reliably learnt.

The approval was withheld by the previous Governor Yaseen Anwar despite clearance to deal by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP). Assurance for giving approval for the sale was taken after the meeting of HSBC Chairman Sherad Cooper and CEO HSBC David Kenney with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar and Acting Governor SBP Ashraf Wathra on Tuesday. Chairman JS Bank Jehangir Siddiqui was also present during the meeting.

SBP had sought an NOC from SECP after JS Bank and HSBC had agreed to the sale. SECP provided a ‘No objection certificate’ and SBP itself cleared J.S. Bank to undertake due diligence of HSBC (Pakistan).

Since SBP inspection reported ‘OK’ it did not make sense to block the transaction.

HSBC had already announced the sale of its 10 branches in Pakistan and SBP had blocked participation of five large network from bidding for these branches since addition of the HSBC branches would not add value to their existing network.

JS Bank is a majority-owned subsidiary of Jahangir Siddiqui & Co Ltd and currently operates 185 branches in 101 cities with a total asset base of Rs 64.53 billion as of June 30. JS Bank’s consolidated profits (after tax) for the year 2012 were Rs 819 million. JS Group is a financial service group in Pakistan. JS Group has expanded its business in different sectors and has introduced JS Bank Limited with various standards of banking. JS Bank Limited operates in the Commercial banking sector. It is a scheduled bank engaged in commercial banking and related services. The activities of JS Bank are categorized into five business units. They are Retail Banking, Wealth Management, Corporate Banking, Investment Banking and Treasury. It employees around 23,000 people. HSBC Pakistan has over Rs 46 billion in deposits with 10 branches nationwide.