Please refer to BPRD Circular No. 15 dated October 12, 2007 whereby revised Branch Licensing Policy (BLP) was announced.

2. In order to provide incentive to commercial banks for enhancing outreach of Islamic banking services, it has been decided to enhance the scope of “Rural/Underserved Areas (RUAs)” definition. Henceforth, any district having less than 10 Islamic Banking Branches (IBBs) will be termed as underserved with respect to Islamic banking facilities. Consequently, first 10 IBBs in such districts of Pakistan will fall under the BLP’s definition of RUAs.

3. Following are four scenarios for understanding the aforesaid criteria for RUAs.

	Number of existing IBBs in any district	Number of future IBBs that falls under the definition of RUAs
Scenario 1	3	7
Scenario 2	14	0
Scenario 3	10	0
Scenario 4	9	1

4. It may be noted that, in each calendar year, only one IBB of a particular bank will be eligible to be treated as RUA in any particular district. This means, if some bank desires to open more than one IBBs in any particular district, then its first IBB will be treated as RUA branch and any subsequent number of branch(es) would be considered as normal branch(es).

5. These instructions will be effective immediately; therefore, banks which have already identified RUA locations in ABEP-2011 are allowed to approach SBP within one month of the issuance of this circular for change/replacement of RUA locations (if desires so) with respect to new criteria.

6. All other instructions on the subject shall remain unchanged.

7. Please acknowledge receipt.