Bank Alfalah

This article is about a bank that was formerly known as Habib Credit & Exchange Bank Limited. For other similarly named banks in Pakistan, see Habib Bank.

Bank Alfalah Limited (Urdu pronunciation: [bɛŋk al.fə.ˈlaːh] bank-al-fuh-LAH), formerly known as Habib Credit and Exchange Bank, is a Pakistani commercial bank headquartered in Karachi. It is a subsidiary of an Emirati conglomerate, Abu Dhabi United Group.^[2]

Bank Alfalah Limited

Formerly	Habib Credit & Exchange Bank Limited
Company type	Public
Traded as	PSX: BAFL KSE 100 component KSE 30 component
Industry	Banking
Founded	21 June 1997; 27 years ago (1997-06-21)
Headquarters	Karachi, Pakistan
Key people	H.H. Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan (chairman) Atif Aslam Bajwa (CEO)
Products	Loans credit cards Debit cards Savings Consumer Banking
Revenue	Rs. 154.134 billion (US$530 million)[1] (2023)
Operating income	Rs. 78.175 billion (US$270 million)[1] (2023)
Net income	Rs. 36.456 billion (US$130 million)[1] (2023)
Total assets	Rs. 3.346 trillion (US$12 billion)[1] (2023)
Total equity	Rs. 137.923 billion (US$480 million)[1] (2023)
Owner	Abu Dhabi United Group
Number of employees	14,738[1] (2023)
Website	bankalfalah.com

It is one of the largest private banks in Pakistan with a network of more than 890 branches in more than 200 cities across Pakistan with an international presence in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Bahrain and UAE of 12 branches.^[3] The Bank is listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange.

History

Headquarters of Alfalah Insurance on I.I. Chundrigar Road in Karachi

The roots of the bank go back to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which had three branches in Pakistan.^[4] These were taken over by the State Bank of Pakistan to safeguard consumer interests, under a new identity of Habib Credit and Exchange Bank (HCEB).^[2]

In July 1997, the Abu Dhabi Group, led by Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan of Al-Nahyan Group, acquired a 70 percent stake in then Habib Credit & Exchange Bank (HCEB), a subsidiary of state-owned bank Habib Bank Limited.^[5] The Privatisation Commission facilitated the sale of 42 million shares on July 7, with the transaction amounting to $40.54 million.^[5] Later, it was renamed as Bank Alfalah Limited.^[2][6][7][8]

Bank Alfalah was incorporated on 21 June 1997, as a public limited company under the Companies Ordinance 1984. Its banking operations commenced on November 1, 1997. The bank is engaged in commercial banking and related services as defined in the Banking Companies Ordinance, 1962.^[9]

In 2004, Bank Alfalah was listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange, following an initial public offering at a strike price of PKR 40 per share.^[10]

FinCEN

Bank Alfalah was named in the FinCEN leak, published by Buzzfeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). It had three suspicious transactions flagged for transactions close to 2.5 million dollars of 2 trillion dollars of suspicious payments made globally by banks in 170 countries. The three transactions occurred between 2011-2012.^[11]