Muhammad Rafiquddin Mehkari has stepped down as President and CEO of Askari 
Bank after serving it for more than two decades since the commercial launch of the bank with his crucial role for the commencement of branchless banking services with Zong Timepey.
M R Mehkari with his team has played a tremendous role to launch branchless banking with Zong at rapid pace expanding business operations of the bank and partner Zong towards a new direction last year.
He is one of the pioneer members of Askari Bank. His career spanned more than 40 years of international and domestic banking. In 1971, he started his career with UBL and in December 1974. He carries extensive experience in all banking dimensions including operations, treasury, fund management and investment banking, in international and domestic banks.
M. R. Mehkari is joined State Bank of Pakistan on secondment and performed as Director, Exchange Policy Department from April 2000 to April 2004, where he took several major initiatives like liberalizing Foreign Exchange Regime etc. He was also a member of Corporate Management Team and Monetary & Exchange Rate Policy Committee at State Bank of Pakistan.
Mehkari is also a member on the board of Khushali Bank and Askari Investment Management Limited, a subsidiary of Askari Bank. His reason of resignation has not been confirmed yet but is reported that he will be inducted in the financial team of the new government or he may join different bank in Pakistan or abroad.
He has been replaced by Tahir Aziz as acting head who has been serving the institution as SEVP of Corporate & Investment Banking Group (CIBG).
Acting President and CEO joined Askari Bank in 2005. He was also responsible for the formation of the Corporate Banking as a distinct business from Commercial/Branch Banking, and positioning it as one of the bank’s largest and fastest growing businesses.
Prior to his current assignment, Aziz was with Union Bank Ltd. where had had joined after working several years at the ANZ Banking Group (ANZ). At ANZ he gained rich experience by leading large transaction undertaken in Australia, United Kingdom, and the Middle East.
He was also a member of the ANZ’s Global Risk Management team, which consisted of select members from the bank’s global resource pool that developed and implemented a proprietary Risk Integration Model that was used by ANZ to evaluate and monitor the bank’s project and structured finance and large corporate assets globally.
