BIS central bankers’ speeches  1  Period of 1947 to 1970 At the time of independence in 1947 the banks services were adversely affected and by June 30, 1948, the number of branches of scheduled banks came down to only 81 in the territories now comprising Pakistan.
However, commercial banking made tremendous progress and achieved phenomenal growth since independence as by December 31, 1973 i.e., before nationalization, there were 14 scheduled Pakistani commercial banks with 3,323 branches all over Pakistan and 74 branches in foreign countries. Development Finance Institutions (DFIs) played a significant role in the early industrial development of Pakistan from the sixties up to about the mid eighties.