Islamabad, 4th February 2008: The Extraordinary General Meeting of Khushhali Bank Limited has elected new members of the Board of Directors for a term of three years. The newly elected members of the Board of the bank comprise four directors representing the share holders namely Syed Ali Raza, President National Bank of Pakistan, Zakir Mahmood, President Habib Bank Limited, Shaharyar Ahmed, President Askari Bank Limited, and Atif Aslam Bajwa, President MCB Limited.

The three non-shareholding Independent directors include Abid Hasan, former Operations Advisor, World Bank Group in Washington, Samina Rizwan, Regional Director, Oracle Corporation, Zia Niazi, a Development Sector Specialist and Ghalib Nishtar, Ex-Officio Director and President, Khushhali Bank Limited. The members of the Khushhali Bank’s Board of Directors bring with them well diversified experience from a cross section of Industry leaders and will provide strategic direction and policy guidelines for the future.

On the occasion, Ghalib Nishtar, President Khushhali Bank Limited briefed the shareholders on the Microfinance Sector Development Program of the Government of Pakistan which has been successful in terms of catalyzing the environment for microfinance within the country as well as attracting global spotlight through the establishment of specialized Microfinance Institutions Framework. He further added that six microfinance banks have so far been licensed under the Microfinance Institutions Framework with private sector investment and several opportunities emerging within the Microfinance sector in the country.

He briefed the shareholders about the operational and financial performance of the bank, future strategies and institutional development activities. Khushhali Bank’s branch network of 138 service outlets is operational in 88 districts across the country including some of the marginalized territories in AJK & FATA.

The bank has so far processed over a million loans amounting to 12.67 billion PKR. In addition, dilating further upon the operational framework of the bank, Ghalib Nishtar said, “Khushhali Bank’s organization and operation are designed on a sustainable community based service delivery system and we have also engaged service providers, primarily leading NGOs for delivery of our products and services to foster our operation and meet the immense market demand”.

About Khushhali Bank Limited: Khushhali Bank Limited (KBL) is rated as Pakistan’s largest and fastest growing retail microfinance bank operating under the Central Bank regulations. Established in the year 2000, the bank is funded by leading international financial institutions as a partnership between public, multinational and private sector commercial financial institutions. KBL’s mission is to market financial services tailored for the low income segment in line with international microfinance practices through extended network operating across the country.