Mr. Zafar Masud in his letter encourages BOP’s staff to fully facilitate the customers in the deposit of their donations at BOP’s branches and that the Branch staff should make extra efforts to ensure that general public visiting the branches for donating money to the account of their choice and liking, is serviced at the highest standards.
Moreover, he is pleased to report that in almost 10 days, the generous citizens of Pakistan and the customers of BOP have collectively managed to raise over Rs. 1 billion for the people that have been left shelter less, after being displaced from their homes and are in dire need of support.
Transcript of the Original Letter
September 5, 2022
Flood Relief Collection at BOP Branches
Dear colleagues,
The people of Pakistan face the underlining impact of heavy rains and flooding — worst in decades. A large number of people have been left shelter less, after being displaced from their homes and are in dire need of support. Under SBP and Government directions, different flood relief collection accounts have been opened so that general public may contribute and send donations. These include Chief Minister’s Flood Relief Fund 2022 (Punjab), Balochistan’s Flood Relief and Rehabilitation Fund Account 2022 and Prime Minister’s Flood Relief Fund – 2022 accounts.
As one of the leading Commercial Banks in the country, Bank of Punjab is at the forefront of these collection efforts and has opened up all channels including branches, ADCs including ATMs, Mobile App and Internet Banking, local and international credit cards, foreign remittances through banking channels, exchange companies and Roshan Samaaji Khidmat, and through local branchless banking agents.
To increase awareness and to facilitate customers, BOP has conducted extensive marketing campaign through social media and TVCs, BOP customers have also been sent SMS messages and banners have been displayed outside our branches.
Almost 10 days into the efforts of collecting funds for flood victims, I am pleased to share that we’ve already raised over Rs. 1 billion in over 52000 transactions. This is no small feat whichever way one looks at it. This has not only enhanced traffic in our branches but also put pressure on our technology infrastructure manifolds.
During the last few days, BOP branches and staff have played a critical role in enabling general public to easily contribute and donate money to Flood Relief accounts of their own choice. While overall performance of BOP staff has been up to the mark, a few customers have complained of facing difficulties in donating money to flood relief account of their choice. All such complaints have been investigated, and it is a matter of satisfaction that these complaints have been found to be based largely on confusion and misunderstanding. However, in order to ensure that no such incident arises, branch staff must ensure that they handle customers donating money, speedily and with courtesy. Staff should clearly ask and understand which Flood Relief Account the customer wants to donate to, and pre-printed deposit slips should be readily available for all the three government accounts that we have for this purpose. Although our deposit receipts are now signature-less, if the customer wants to get a signed receipt, branch operations staff should provide a signed one. Branch staff should make extra efforts to ensure that general public visiting our branches for donating money to the account of their choice and liking, is serviced at the highest standards!
I expect all our staff members rise to the occasion and show solidarity with flood affected Pakistanis and complement the national efforts in combating the direct and inter-related impacts.
Best Regards,
Zafar Masud